At present New York has thirty-three Open Air Schools and Open Window Rooms, with a total enrollment of at least 1,000.
Chicago's first Outdoor School for Tuberculous Children was inaugurated as a result of the joint co-operation of the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute and the Board of Education. This school was opened during the first week of August, 1909, on the grounds of the Harvard School at Seventy-fifth street and Vincennes Road. The Board of Education assigned a teacher to the school and furnished the equipment, while the Tuberculosis Institute supplied the medical and nursing service, selected the children and provided the food.
Except during inclement weather, the children occupied a large shelter tent in which thirty reclining chairs were placed. Meals were served in the basement of the school building, where a gas range, cooking utensils and tables were installed for this special purpose.
The nurse, who was assigned by the Tuberculosis Institute on half-time attendance, visited the school each afternoon, took daily afternoon temperatures, pulse and respiration, looked after the general physical condition of the children, made weekly records of their gain or loss in weight and did instructive work in the home of each pupil.
Of the thirty children selected, seventeen had pulmonary tuberculosis, two had tubercular glands, and eleven were designated as "pre-tuberculous." None of the children had passed to the "open" or infectious stage. On admission two-thirds of the children showed a temperature of from 99 to 100.2 degrees.
The daily program was similar to that already described for the Providence and Boston Schools. The school was kept open for a period of only one month, with excellent results. During this time the thirty children made a net gain of 115 pounds in weight, and at the close of the period practically all of them showed a normal temperature, with their general condition greatly improved.
It is needless to say that the experiment created a great deal of local interest in the problem of better school ventilation. Those who had the success of the movement most intimately at heart realized, however, that the undertaking lacked the element of permanency and that the results accomplished by it lacked that degree of conclusiveness which would attend the same results if secured through the operation of an all-the-year-round school.
The opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of such an all-the-year-round school was realized in the Fall of 1909 by a grant from the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund to the United Charities for the purpose of conducting such a school on the roof of the Mary Crane Nursery at Hull House. This school was opened by the United Charities in October with twenty-five carefully selected children, and was conducted throughout the following winter and spring with the co-operation of the Board of Education and the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute. During the same winter the Public School Extension Committee of the Chicago Women's Club, co-operating with the Board of Education, established two classes for anaemic children in open window rooms—one in the Moseley and one in the Hamline School. Here the regular regime was broken by a rest period, and lunches of bread and milk were served twice each day. "Fresh Air Rooms," in which the windows were thrown wide open and the heat cut off, were also established for normal children in several rooms in the Graham School. No attempt was made here to furnish lunches and no rest period was provided.
There were, then, during the school year of 1909 and 1910, three distinct classes of children cared for by three distinct agencies—the classes for normal children in the low temperature rooms at the Graham School; anaemic children, with rest period and two lunches, in the Moseley and Hamline Open Window Rooms, and the Roof School for Tuberculous Children, with specially provided clothing, sleeping outfits, three meals a day and medical and nursing attendance, at the Mary Crane Nursery.