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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
BUREAU OF EDUCATION,
Washington, June 1, 1915.

SIR: With the increase of population, the lengthening of the school life of children, and the consolidation of small into large schools, often with many hundreds of children in one building, the care of the health of children while in school becomes correspondingly more important. Since the health of school children depends to a large extent on the location, heating, lighting, ventilation, and other sanitary arrangements of schoolhouses, the laws of States and the regulations of boards of education relating thereto are of great interest and importance to all. I therefore recommend that the accompanying manuscript on schoolhouse sanitation, the result of a study by Mr. William A. Cook, of the University of Colorado, into laws and regulations governing the hygiene and sanitation of schoolhouses, be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education.

Respectfully submitted.

The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

4

P. P. CLAXTON,

Commissioner.

SCHOOLHOUSE SANITATION.

A STUDY OF THE LAWS AND REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE HYGIENE AND SANITATION OF SCHOOLHOUSES.

I. INTRODUCTION.

This bulletin reviews the standards that are set to-day in the different States concerning the physical environment to which the child is intrusted by compulsory attendance upon public schools. The school endeavors to instruct the child how to avoid ills of various sorts; the State, through inspection, is barring from the school those persons who may be a source of danger to others-these are facts that need not at present concern us, though they afford scope for a volume. This bulletin is confined to the hygienic provisions regarding the school site and the school plant.

There are difficulties in the way of a satisfactory treatment of this subject; some of them should be noted at the outset. The school codes of many States omit some of the laws bearing on school sanitation. These omissions can only be discovered by a careful scrutiny of the statutes. At the same time it is impossible to tell what shall be to-morrow. Various executive authorities, clothed with different degrees of power relative to control of school environment, are competent to act at any moment. State departments of education, State and local boards of health, fire marshals, factory inspectors, district police, etc., are some of the agencies charged with authority to make and enforce regulations carrying all the weight of statutory law. The courts, on the other hand, are competent to review these laws and rulings, and have already in several of the States handed down important decisions bearing upon school hygiene.

Increased facilities for communication and the similarity in ideals of the people of the different States have occasioned gigantic strides in the last few years in the legal and administrative control of school hygiene. Probably nine-tenths of the existing regulation of this sort has come within the last decade. The movement continues largely by a process of imitation and adaptation. Each State profits by the experience of 47 others. A law passed in one extreme of the country to-day is copied next month or next year by a State two or three thousand miles distant.

As a consequence of the way laws accumulate and administrative authority is exercised, there will be noted some contradictions and

many duplications in law, much of vagueness in administrative regulations, and some conflict in administrative authority. The last is by far the most serious difficulty. It is due for the most part either to reluctance on the part of legislatures to delegate power and provide penalties, or to the fact that the administrative officer is dependent for his reelection upon a more or less temporary popularity. Illustrations will make this plainer. The superintendent of public instruction in one State writes: "While the law requires that the plans (of all school buildings) be approved, the methods of enforcing such approval are rather meager." Reference to the State law reveals that there is no penalty whatever for violations. The State superintendent of Utah complains that the law establishing a State schoolhouse commission for the approval of building plans in that State is not effective because no appropriation has been made to meet the expenses of the inspection necessary to satisfy the commission that the plans and specifications are executed as approved.❜ By authorization of law the department of public instruction in a certain State has established requirements for ventilating rural schools that expect a bonus from the State. Additional recommendation and discussion of ways and means are embodied in a circular issued to school officials. With a view to discovering how much was recommendation and how much requirement, a blank entitled "County Superintendent's Inspection Report" was secured, and upon it were noted such replies to the various queries as a leading official of the State Department felt would constitute the minimum for the granting of the bonus. The circular of the State Department says that "the chimney built for the outlet must be at least 16 by 16. or 12 by 24 inside measurement"; yet a favorable report is made on applications giving 12 by 12 as the inside measurement. The fresh-air intake "should be at least 14 inches in diameter," but in practice 12 inches is accepted, with a foul-air outlet of equal size, though the State circular reads: "The foul-air outlet must be larger than the fresh-air intake." Complaint was made unofficially by a member of this department that county superintendents are too dependent upon local good will to be ideal inspectors. They are disposed, in some instances, to get as much money as possible for their schools regardless of conditions.

It is neither possible nor desirable in the following pages to introduce the multiform difficulties and uncertainties that the subject offers. It will be necessary to be liberal in recognizing recommendations as requirements. The State requirements are presented in the language of the original as nearly as terseness and exactness permit; requirements set up by smaller administrative units have

1 For convenience the term "State superintendent" will hereafter be used in referring to the chief educational officer of any State not having a commissioner.

Ninth Rep. Supt. Pub. Instr., Utah (advance sheets), pp. 13-14.

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