of horizontal area of fresh-air flues there must be 50 square feet of indirect radiation, and an accelerating coil equivalent to not less than 20 square feet shall be provided for each vent-flue (Minnesota). The object of the first part of this provision is the heating of the fresh air, a point that is not overlooked by the State superintendent in examining petitions for State aid. Fresh air must be heated before it is discharged into the schoolroom (North Dakota). The introduction of fresh air at the base of a direct radiator is prohibited (Minnesota). Each classroom must have separate inlet and outlet flues (New Jersey). The smoke pipe from a jacketed stove shall enter the vent flue not over 6 feet from the floor (Vermont). An approved ventilating stove is allowed in one and two room buildings (New Jersey). The State superintendent in approving plans will expect the cold-air duct to be lined with metal, with the outer end so sloping as to keep it dry and all openings screened against entrance by animals (South Dakota). In a plenum system of ventilation the air pressure inside the room shall be in excess of that outside (Minnesota). By a separate system of ventilation through vertical flues, hoods shall be provided in all domestic-science rooms and chemical laboratories sufficient to conduct away offensive odors. This system shall be operated by electric fans if an electric current is available or by accelerating coils if steam or hot water is used for heating (Ohio). Gas plates or gas stoves used in connection with either cooking or laboratory work shall be connected by hoods with a separate vertical vent flue, in which an upward draft shall be constant (Indiana). Humidification. One item certainly merits the distinction of a separate paragraph. In Minnesota the State superintendent, before he allows State aid to any school, requires that furnace heaters be supplied with a reservoir to humidify the air on its way to the schoolroom. If other simpler forms of heating are in use, an evaporating dish or vessel must be properly placed near the source of heat. An exception is made in favor of steam heat. X. CLEANING AND DISINFECTING. Ordinary and extraordinary cleaning and disinfecting.—Provisions for cleaning and disinfecting in relation to the school plant in general are considered here, since discussion of the special care of toilets and outbuildings has been shifted to the section which treats of those accommodations. In over one-fourth of the States only has this important subject been controlled in any degree outside the districts themselves. Some of the laws or regulations are almost model; others are wholly inadequate. State boards of health are to be thanked for nearly all that has been accomplished. Aside from 4 Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which prohibit by law spitting on the floor of any public building, and Louisiana and Vermont, where the boards of health forbid spitting in any schoolroom, 12 States have entered this field; 9 of these provide for regular or ordinary cleaning or disinfecting; 7 States discuss special cases. Minnesota is disposed of by citing the unique requirement that "each entrance must be provided with foot scrapers and cocoa or steel mats," while the State superintendent of North Dakota has a similar condition when granting State aid. Treatment of floors.—Ordinary cleaning and disinfecting is covered by all sorts of provisions, such as special treatment of the floors, proper time for the work, prohibitions and prescriptions of methods, materials, etc. All floors except hardwood or tile must be oiled twice a year, and three times if school holds nine months. Oiling shall always be preceded by a scrubbing (Indiana). All floors must be treated with some antiseptic dressing approved by the State analyst. They are to be scrubbed before each treatment, and treated often enough to keep down the dust (Louisiana). Frequency of cleaning.—As to frequency of cleaning, etc., there arẻ the following standards: All schoolhouses shall be cleaned and ́disinfected before the opening of each school year; the janitor shall remove chalk dust daily and clean erasers outside (Indiana); floors shall be swept daily; desks, wainscoting, window sills, and blackboards must be wiped daily with a 1-2,000 solution of bichloride of mercury or a 3 per cent solution of carbolic acid; all schools shall be disinfected "before the beginning of each school session" (Louisiana).o In rural schools floors, interior woodwork, and windows shall be thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned every three months (Montana).10 Balustrades of stairways and door knobs are to be wiped daily with a cloth moistened in a solution of formaldehyde or carbolic acid (Nebraska). Every local board of health shall cause each schoolhouse in its jurisdiction to be disinfected every 30 days, except in vacation time (North Dakota).12 In all cities a method of disinfection shall be adopted for the fumigation of schools at regular intervals of not more than two weeks (Pennsylvania).13 Pennsylvania further requires that 1 Acts of 1909, ch. 166. Act approved Mar. 2, 1908. Laws of 1911, ch. 407. 4 School Laws, p. 125. Bull. No. 40, Dept. Pub. Instr. State aid to consolidated, graded, and rural schools. Book of Instructions to Health Authorities, issued by State Bd. of Health, p. 37, 8 School Laws, p. 137. 9 Ibid, p. 126. 10 Laws of 1913. 11 School Law, p. 121. 12 Laws of 1911, ch. 63. 13 Purdon's Digest of Statute Law of State of Pennsylvania, pp. 698-699. "all school directors, trustees, principals, and presidents of schools and colleges outside of cities * * pay prompt and regular attention to the disinfection of buildings used for educational purposes immediately after the discovery of any communicable disease within said building.' Floors shall be swept daily except on holidays; all wainscoting, window ledges, and furniture shall be wiped daily with a cloth dampened by an approved disinfectant; all removable rugs, cushions, and other upholstery are to be thoroughly aired and sunned by removal from the building weekly (Texas). All sweepings must be removed daily; furniture and woodwork are to be wiped with a disinfectant solution once a month and with a damp cloth once a week (Virginia). All schoolhouses, before school opens at the beginning of each school term, shall be thoroughly cleaned (Wisconsin). The new Wisconsin law of 1913 requires the use of vacuum sweepers. Methods prescribed.-Prescriptions of method are as follows: "Cleaning shall consist in first sweeping, then scrubbing the floors, washing the windows and all woodwork, including the wooden parts of seats and desks, and the disinfecting shall be done in accordance with the rules of the State board of health," dusting shall be done with an oiled cloth (Indiana); windows shall be thrown open after sweeping and the rooms thoroughly aired, disinfection follows the rules of the State board of health (Louisiana); the local or State board of health must approve all methods of disinfection (Pennsylvania); before sweeping, the floor shall be sprinkled with an approved disinfectant solution, saturated sawdust preferred (Texas); no disinfectant solution is necessary, but the floor must first be dampened with water, damp sawdust, or damp paper (Virginia). Practices forbidden.-Several very common practices are forbidden in some States. Dry sweeping is tabooed in Indiana. No sweeping can be done until after dismissal for the day in Indiana, Louisiana, Texas, and Virginia. The Indiana State board of health orders that blackboards and erasers shall not be cleaned by pupils, nor until the session is over. With a single exception every rule is of State-wide application. Extraordinary cleaning.-Extraordinary cleaning or disinfecting follows in seven States immediately upon the discovery in any school of any of a certain class of diseases. These are variously described as "communicable," "dangerous communicable," "contagious," "infectious," and "quarantinable." But three of the States have a special list of specific diseases that call at once for action. This list includes 1 Rules and Regulations, Aug. 15, 1911. 2 School Laws, pp. 92-93. 3 School Laws, p. 45. Laws of 1911, ch. 44; acts of 1913, ch. 274. See published rules of boards of health of various States. scarlet fever, smallpox, and diphtheria in all three States, measles in two, and infantile paralysis, epidemic spinal-meningitis, and bubonic plague in one each. In Indiana and Michigan it is only the rooms attended by the stricken child that must be disinfected, but in the other States the entire building must be closed and treated. The method of disinfection is in the hands of the State board of health with one possible exception, and this body has been very careful in some States to explain everything to the minutest detail. Drawers, closets, and desks are opened. Books are stood on end, wide open. The rooms are made air-tight, kept sealed for six hours, then flooded with fresh air for another six. Corrosive sublimate solution may be afterwards used to wipe all clothes closets and desks; for metal fixtures a solution of carbolic acid in hot water is commonly employed. Formaldehyde is favored by most as the disinfecting gas. XI. FURNITURE AND EQUIPMENT. Two items of furniture and equipment at once occur to the mind as media with which the child is almost continually in contact during the school day. These are the books on the one hand, the desk and seat on the other. It is with these in some form that most of the rules under this section deal. Books. Two general classes of provisions affect books, (1) those, which concern disinfection, (2) those that relate primarily to the hygiene of the eye. Rule XXI of the Idaho State Board of Health states that school or library books taken to a house where Asiati cholera, smallpox, yellow fever, infantile paralysis, typhus fever diphtheria (membranous croup), cerebro-spinal meningitis, or scarle fever exists, must be destroyed. The State law also says that book belonging to any district which happen to be in the house of a pup when he is confined with a quarantinable disease, must be disinfecte by the attending physician before being returned to the schoo Rules of the Wisconsin and Nebraska State boards of health a equivalent to that of the Idaho board. The Oregon board requir that under similar conditions books shall be destroyed or prope disinfected before being placed again in circulation. Since Dr. L. Nice reported in 1911 that nine States disinfect by steam or bu badly soiled books, it may well be that the above data do not rep sent fully the present status. The statutes of Maine contain provision that no second-hand books shall be purchased district." 3 1 School Laws, p. 60. • Rule 11. School Law, p. 121. ♦ Statutes relating to public health, etc., p. 48. 6 Monthly Bull., Ohio State Bd. of Health, Aug., ! 2 8 3 Alabama,1 Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi," Missouri,' North Carolina, Oklahoma,' and South Dakota,10 legally authorize textbook commissions, usually of the State, sometimes of the county, to consider in the selection of texts such qualities as printing, type, paper, binding, etc. Oddly enough, these commissions appear not to have adopted definite standards. Seats and desks.-On general furniture Delaware is at least explicit. The furniture must be modern according to the standards of the State board of education," but what these standards are is a matter of doubt. Apparently they have not been published. Minesota is the only State that has legally adopted single desks;12 20 per ant of all desks and seats in each room shall be adjustable in Inana. Adjustable furniture is not spoken of in either the Vermont tatutes or in the rules of the State board of health, but the correndence of the latter body shows that the schools at Newbury, ton, and Royalton have been compelled to put in adjustable The Indiana health authorities in each locality are charged see that the adjustable furniture is changed once or twice each to allow for the growth of the pupils; and the State health offi make some special requirements for crippled children. Desksbe "of suitable size" (Minnesota). The State superintendent Sath Dakota before approving plans will look carefully to the g of seats. He will expect an interval of 9 inches from the f the seat to the edge of the desk in primary rooms, 10 inches ermediate grades, 11 or 12 inches in grammar grades, and 1 foot High school. He advises against the policy of placing different f seats in the same row. The Vermont Board of Health dethe seat and desk in some detail." The height of seat shall ad to the length of the leg below the knee; the seat must be al or slightly curved, the lower back convex, the upper back the desk and seat are to overlap slightly, and the desk for slant about 15°. The New Jersey State Board of Educa |