Nothing reveals the exact lighting of a room so perfectly as a camera. By placing the instrument in various positions in order to take the four walls of the room, a fine test is made. The camera is as delicately sensitive to light as is the human eye, after which it is patterned.

When the writer asked his photographer to place the camera in the position required the latter demurred, declaring that it would spoil the picture. Photographers well know that the camera requires an even light, that it cannot work well amid two different intensities at the same time. But this is exactly the position in which the school children are placed five hours each day.

If the health of our children is of primal importance, as we all admit, then it is high time the educational world should be considering the question of light.

The only way to secure a well-distributed light is from overhead. For thorough diffusion it should pass through ribbed or prism glass. The walls of a room should always be of a light color

as a further aid in diffusion. One illustration shows a room in the new skylighted school in River Forest. This picture was taken on a cloudy day in December with all side window shades closely drawn. The regular practice here is to keep all shades drawn to the horizontal line, thus ensuring entrance of light from above only.

The pupils and teachers in this building report better spirits and less weariness when the day is over than they ever experienced before. Here is a soft, thoroughly diffused and perfectly distributed light; no dark corners, glaring windows nor squinting eyes. Artificial light is never needed in this sky-lighted building even on the darkest winter days.

To illuminate school rooms by means of skylights necessitates one-story buildings with flat roofs. Flat roofs of tar and gravel cost far less than the high gable roof even after including the expense of the skylights.

One-story schools may be made quite acceptable in the hands of competent architects. It is necessary to extend the parapet walls a few feet higher in order

to mask the lights. The four-room Elm Street School of River Forest, Illinois, was completed in November, 1910, at a cost of $19,000. It is strictly modern, having, besides top-lighting, a superior ventilating system of a novel type.

Still another of our illustrations shows the saw-tooth skylights, which are parallel ridges running east and west, the south slope of which is covered with tin so as to exclude sun-rays, while the north slope is of reinforced ribbed glass. Thus is assured a steady north light with no interference from sunshine. The ceiling glass of the classrooms is also of ribbed glass which has proved to be the best light diffuser.

Contrary to the prevailing idea, oncstory buildings cost no more per room than two-story structures! The large halls required to make room for the stairways in the latter and to accommodate the numbers using the same exit,

necessitate the enlargement of the ground plan of the entire building, which adds enormously to the cost without corresponding increase in the number of classrooms. The costly stairways, the heavier walls and foundations needed for a two-story structure, overbalance the added cost for excavation and roofing of one-story buildings. Moreover, in the latter, the partition walls need not be of brick.

One-story schools require much more space, however, and where land values are very high such construction may be impossible. But for smaller cities, villages and suburbs there are no obstacles to this novel type of school architecture. Boards of education ought to consider well before burdening future generations with ill-lighted school buildings that may have to be torn down to make room for an intelligent progress based on scientific investigation.

HE decision of the Turkish government to extend the famous Hedjaz Railroad by carrying the metals of this line across the desert from

Medina to Mecca calls attention to what is undoubtedly one of the most daring railroad enterprises of the age.

This railroad is unique in its claim of being the only railroad built for the purpose of carrying pilgrims. Indeed, known as "The Railroad of the Pilgrims," it is being used for the transportation of Mohammedan pilgrims to Medina, the burial place of their prophet. Starting from Damascus it runs almost due south through wild and sterile country for more than 820 miles to Medina. A short distance from the terminus is Daraa, now quite an imposing and important station, where the line joins that coming up from Haifa round the southern shores of the Sea of Galilee.

From Daraa the line gradually ascends the undulating slopes of a plateau as far as Zerka, where it drops into a deep valley, and climbs out again by a winding belt. As the line proceeds southwards, signs of civilization become fewer and fewer, and the sense of desolation more pronounced. Pursuing a course

parallel to the River Jordan, and almost identical with the old caravan route, the railroad traverses a district as full of interest for the Christian as for the Mohammedan. Decayed ruins of past civilizations and silent monuments of longdeparted prosperity are visible on all sides.

So the journey continues until El Ula is reached, 609 miles from Damascus and 210 from Medina. Beyond El Ula none but Mohammedans may go, even the engineer-in-chief, who is a German, had to relegate to a Mohammedan assistant the carrying of the metals into Medina. The railroad is now to be extended to Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, but to accomplish this, 285 miles of track has yet to be laid across the desert. This is now being rapidly done and construction trains carrying the necessary material have proceeded south from Damascus with Turkish soldiers who will build the line under the direction of a Mohammedan engineer. It is interesting here to note that when the Bagdad Railroad has progressed another 200 miles and the Bosphorus is spanned by a bridge, the sacred city of Mecca will be in direct railroad communication with Constantinople.

"I DON'T know whether I ought to recognize him here in the city or not. Our acquaintance at the seashore was very slight."

"You promised to marry him, didn't you?" "Yes, but that was all."-Louisville Courier

Her Choice

A FASHIONABLY dressed young woman entered the post office in a large Western city, hesitated a moment, and stepped up to the stamp window. The stamp clerk looked up expectantly, and she asked: "Do you sell stamps here?" The clerk politely answered,

"Yes." "I would like to see some, please," was the unusual request. The clerk dazedly handed out a large sheet of the two-cent variety, which the young woman carefully examined. Pointing to one near the center, she