[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I read your article on Open-Air Schools with great interest and agreed with many of the points contained therein. We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that we cannot build one type of school to fit in with all climates. What is suitable to the climate of Australia and New Zealand is most unsuitable to our rigorous northern climate. The majority of school children are inadequately clothed and fed, and to subject them to open-air school instruction would place too severe a strain upon them. If the Government were to provide meals and suitable clothing for all poor children, it would entail enormous expense, while on every side we hear the cry for economy.
Undoubtedly the existing ventilation system of many of our present day-schools is perfectly useless and should be scrapped, but as it is impossible to manage without these schools, a scheme of ventilation should be adopted whereby a constant supply of fresh air can be secured at all times and in all weathers. This can be done and has been done by the installation of specially constructed mechanical windows; which can be automatically locked at any angle by the taking away of a small handle. Several large schools recently built, and others in course of erection, are adopting this system, the authorities connected therewith having had experience of the same.
The writer, with twenty-five years' of practical school ven- tilation experience, has in mind a large Council School opened six months ago, designed by a Borough Engineer who has fitted a similar system, and the result is the equivalent to the Open-Air School without its disadvantages and difficulties
[It is in New Zealand where the greatest progress has been made with the Open-Air School movement. The climate of the South Island of New Zealand is very much like our own, its mean temperature being not more than 4 degs. higher than that of London. We recently asked a Medical Officer of Health from New Zealand (British-born) who has taken an active part in advocating open-air Schools in the Dominion, if he thought that would be practicable all the year round in Great Britain, and he emphatically said Yes. We understand that a school is termed " open-air " when one side of the building can be thrown open to the air by means of sliding windows and other devices. School children in Great Britain must, of course, have overhead protection, but there is no reason why at least one side of the school should not be removable. We understand there are over a dozen open-air schools in New Zealand, and we hope to obtain further details of their con- struction.—En. Spectator.]
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