The Hygiene of Lighting
Lest the individual teacher should regard these matters of architecture as very remote from his or her personal interests, let us comment on the evil effects of neglect of some of the hygienic problems which the modern school is designed to solve.
When light is badly distributed, there is a strain on the eyes which results in unfavorable physiological conditions. These unfavorable conditions sometimes take the form of a congestion of the blood vessels in and around the eye, with consequent feelings of discomfort and inability to work. These unfavorable results may appear both in pupils and in the teacher. The conditions are not clearly recognizable through any signs of fatigue which the person affected can readily localize, for we have no sense organ giving direct sensations of fatigue. The result is that the person is unable to do his work, but does not know, unless he has made a special study of the problem, what the difficulty is or how to remedy it. Evidently the problem of lighting cannot be left to natural judgment, and every physical appliance for proper control and distribution of illumination should be provided.