Open-Air Schools
THE first open-air school was established in a pine wood near Charlottenburg. It was a sort of hospital school for delicate children who were unable, on account of physical weakness, to profit by the curri- culum of the ordinary schools. On August 1st, 1904, this Forest School, as it was called, originated a new method of education.
This was quite unrecognized at the time, as the school was essentially a hospital rather than a school. Now, after nearly twenty-four years, the open-air school method, which had its rise in the necessity for providing some sort of lessons for sick children while their bodies were receiving treatment, is developing into a system of education applicable to all children.
True education is the balanced development of body, --mind, and spirit ; this is -just what the open-air school achieves. It definitely challenges the " cram and exam " methods of education, and although the progress of the movement has not been as rapid as it might have been, there are indications, nevertheless, that we are on the eve of a quicker advance. When he inaugurated the new open-air school at Wolverhampton, Lord Eustace Percy spoke emphatically in favour of the open-air school for all children.
This is also the view of the Spectator. We hope that the day of the child-cage school is nearly past. On the other hand, we do not consider that any sort of a shed is good enough for an open-air school. On the contrary, we want to see the open-air school-room an even .prettier and more comfortable place than the best type of closed school-room at present in existence, If this be done, the open-air school Movement will continue to advance, but if teachers and children are provided with uncomfortable and unlovely sheds in lieu of school-rooms the movement will receive a serious set-back. Indeed we have heard of a place in Australia where just such a set-back arose from this very cause.
True there are a few born teachers who can do wonders under any circumstances, but they are not in the majority, and we have to provide for the average rather than the exceptional teacher. This does not mean that expensive and palatial school buildings are necessary—quite the opposite. By the exercise of a little care in the design, and the judicious use of paint, the most temporary of open-air structures can be made pretty and attractive. Then, too, the school surroundings are of the utmost importance, and much can be done with flowers, shrubs, and neatly shaven lawns to compensate for any loss of architectural impressiveness. In our opinion the best feature of the new Derbyshire open-air schools is the central courtyard with its ornamental ponds, green lawns, and shrubs.
To-day, as never before, the need of the human body for a full measure of sunlight is recognized. The furniture of the open-air school, therefore, must be light and portable so that, whenever the weather is fine, lessons may be done out of doors. As to heating, cold is not harmful to children, provided they are well fed, and, as we know, delicate children improve in an almost miracu- lous manner in the coldest of open-air schools. Yet, human nature being what it is, we consider that, for the present at. any rate, the open-air school should be provided with some_ means of artificial heating.
The public mind is slow to move ; and the open-air school is treated to-day with the same suspicion which yesterday was bestowed upon the open-air sanatorium. It is interesting to compare the early reception of the open-air treatment of consumption with the reception of the open-air school to-day. George Bodington was the first to employ open-air treatment for tuberculosis.
wrote regarding his, method in 1840. " Cold," he said, " is never too. intense for a consumptive_ patient. The apartment should be kept well aired so that it resembles the pure air of the outside ; pure air being used in the treatment as much as possible." This statement startled not only laymen but medical men as well, and, like all revolutionary ideas, reacted upon its originator. Bodington was maligned and spoken of as being insane, and so bitter was the persecution on the part of the medical profession that the patients were afraid to stay in his institution. To-day the open-air treatment for tuberculosis is fully established and appreciated by everyone, but the idea that schools should make the fullest use of the open air is yet far from being universally accepted. The advocate of open-air schools is not, indeed, like the unfortunate Bodington, regarded as insane, but he is liable to be looked upon as a crank. In another important respect too the position is different.
In 1840 Bodington was opposed by.the medical profession ; in 1928 the medical profession welcomes the open-air school. ..
Doctors as a body may be taken to be in favour of open-air schools certainly. all those who have studied the question. Sir George Newman, the Principal Medical Officer to the Board of Education, has written in his 1921 Report :—" Emphasis has been laid during the past ten years in my reports on the remarkable benefit, both physical and mental, secured to school children. by the provision of facilities for receiving . organized instruction in the open-air—a form of special school of great importance and wide application."
Nearly every type of delicate child will benefit by being kept at school in . the open air. Why, then, need we fear_ ill results from a like treatment of healthy children ? It is high time that Education Authorities throughout the country took heed of Sir George Newman's opinion that open-air methods " are applicable to the abnormal and the normal child."
We still need 111Q1T remedial schools for delicate children, but an equally pressing need is that all new schools for normal children shall. be open-air schools.
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