Fig. 10 B. Exterior of Empire School
A High-School Building of the Early Type
A similar lesson may be drawn from the study of high-school buildings of successive generations. The following quotation from the Denver survey shows how limited was the earlier conception of the school and its doings.
The course of study in this school [the East Side High School] was from the first a rigorous, disciplinary course, dominated by literary and classical interests. The issue between science and the classics was clearly drawn even in the early years of the East Side High School’s history, but the victory has always been with the literary subjects....
The kind of a course of study which was thought of as necessary in those early days reflected itself in the kind of a building which was erected. The East Side High School building was, in its day, a conspicuous model of high-school architecture. The high ceilings and great corridors and large classrooms showed the generous intention of the citizens of Denver. There were, however, no gymnasium, no lunch room, no shop for manual training, and no special equipments for science courses. In short, the East Side High School stands as a conservative example of a school, strong in its early days, but unable in these days to take on the progressive features of a first-class high school because of physical limitations and because of the hampering traditions which come from a successful past.[31]
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.
The Hygiene of Ventilation and Heating
In regard to ventilation and heating the situation is much the same as with lighting. Until recently all public buildings were without special provisions for ventilation, it being assumed that enough air would come in through doors and windows. The private dwelling was the model followed in this matter. A dwelling occupied by a few people leaks enough fresh air so that even when all the windows are closed the air is tolerable. When fifty or a hundred people in a public building are crowded into a space that is proportionately much smaller than the space in a dwelling and when, furthermore, through improvements in methods of construction the leakage of fresh air is almost entirely stopped, the situation calls for artificial means of introducing air and distributing it. The situation with regard to fresh air is complicated in all colder climates by the necessity of producing and conserving artificial heat. Modern heating arrangements are capable of maintaining large buildings at a summer temperature even in the coldest weather, but in order to do this at reasonable cost the building must be made as nearly air-tight as possible. The temperatures secured through artificial-heating plants have also brought another evil. The air raised to a high temperature is abnormal in humidity because it is taken from outdoors, where it is cold and the humidity is low, and is raised by heating to a condition where it can absorb a great quantity of moisture. Such air is very dry and takes moisture in an excessive degree from the moist linings of the human respiratory tracts and thus irritates and fatigues the people exposed to the dry air, becoming a serious menace to comfort and even to health. To meet these difficulties it has been necessary to introduce into all public buildings artificial ventilating and humidifying systems. Even in one-room rural schools, where the simpler types of architecture must still be adhered to, it is common, as pointed out above, to jacket the stove, thus making it possible to circulate fresh air and to introduce an evaporation reservoir which will render the humidity more nearly normal. Above all it is important that teachers understand that these matters cannot be left to mere chance. Life indoors is artificial at best, and its conditions must be guarded as carefully as possible.