to a badly ventilated school-room knows that it is the smell from damp and dirty clothes which is the principal source of the offensive atmosphere. . . . I contend that school baths are necessary for the education of the great mass of our poor as much as, if not more so than a knowledge of geography and astronomy or even of history. It will be impossible for the people to be godly until they are instructed in the way of cleanliness. Cleanly children will acquire a dislike for personal dirt, and retain it to the end of their lives. They will make more effort to raise themselves from below the level of brutes to that of Christians than they otherwise would if allowed to remain accustomed to filth. Use becomes

second nature, and second nature in a century or two becomes instinctive.

It is only by educating our poorer classes in cleanliness in early life that we shall make them, as a whole, love it for its own sake, and hate dirt and those habits which tend to make man lower than the beasts of the earth,—too often now arising from an acquaintance, an intimate association, with dirt and dirty homes among the poor. Poverty may be clean; and with cleanliness the first step will have been taken to do away with the evils which follow in its train, and that health secured which riches without cleanliness cannot possibly purchase.

Of the three classes of baths, the tub bath, the shower bath, and the swimming bath,- the first, namely, tubs, are not well suitable for schools, as a very large number of fixtures would be required to bathe all the children. The space for the tubs cannot always be found in a school building; and the process would nat

urally be slow, and result in serious inconveniences. Moreover, tub baths would require the outlay of a vast sum of money.

Swimming baths in schools would be good, as far as giving an opportunity for bodily exercise is concerned. For a cleansing bath, however, the swimming bath is not well suited, for reasons explained heretofore; and here again the tepid shower or rain bath offers immense advantages.

To Professor Fluegge and Mayor Merkel, of the German university town of Goettingen, belongs the credit of having first tried the experiment of rain baths in the public schools about the year 1885.

Groups of children are bathed together; and care is taken not to give the children the baths at the end of the school session, so that the children will not catch cold in going home. After some use of the baths it is found that the children enjoy them; that their minds become more active and more attentive; that the baths induce a better cleanliness in clothing, and particularly in the underwear; that the parents pay more attention to the cleanly and neat appearance of their children; and, finally, that the air of schoolrooms is greatly improved.

At first some teachers and boards of education raised trivial objections to the introduction of bathing in the schools. They claimed that the school was not the place to educate children to appreciate the cleanliness obtained by bathing, that this belonged to the family. Fear was expressed lest the children would catch cold: whereas experience has proven that the bath hardens the body. Others objected to the cost, claiming that people's baths, and not school baths, were required. A few finally objected to the bathing being made compulsory: whereas experience in the schools demonstrated the fact that the children all soon became eager to bathe.

In the German schools, bathing has become very popular; and the movement is rapidly extending, so much so that recent school buildings are rarely constructed without rain baths for boys and girls in the basement.

In this country there are as yet but few school baths. One on the rain bath principle was erected in a high school at Scranton, Pa., a year or two ago. At Manistee, Mich., a company erected people's baths in 1885; and one of the aims of the company was to get as many children as possible to take regular baths by distributing tickets to the school-children.

In February, 1885, a sub-committee on baths and lavatories of a citizens' committee in New York City made a report recommending the erection of people's baths in the tenement districts, and also the equipment of public schools, where practicable, with baths in the basement; and favored the adoption of the rain bath system because "there is no waste of water, because the cost of erection is very moderate, and because the system is characterized by cleanliness and simplicity."

In a series of articles on "The Proper Arrangement of Water Closet and Bath Apartments," published in Architecture and Building in 1896, the writer again advocated the establishment of school baths. He said:

It is a very desirable thing to have every public school provided with a few spray baths. These can be located either in a

separate one-story pavilion or else in the basement adjoining the children's play-rooms. . . . Scarcely any school building is nowadays erected in German cities. without this necessary provision for the health and cleanliness of the children, many of whom do not know in their homes the blessings and advantages of regular bathing. I hope, in the interest of the coming generation of our American school-children, that some pen more facile and powerful than my own will make a strong plea to our boards of education

in favor of spray baths in the public schools. I am convinced that this would incidentally help to solve, more than any elaborate mechanical arrangement, the question of school-room ventilation.

In the city of Boston, school baths were introduced about 1896, at the suggestion of Dr. Edward M. Hartwell, at the new Paul Revere School, designed by Messrs. Peabody & Stearns, architects, at the North End, and soon after at another school in the West End. In the former school 1,000 children bathed in one week. When the baths were first contemplated, the Committee on School-houses reported unfavorably, saying:

We hesitate to take the position that it is the duty of the school authorities to bathe the children in public schools, because they may not be clean; for, if this be granted, we see no reason why we should not clothe them if they be improperly clothed or feed them if they are not properly nourished at home. But, outside of the legal questions involved, your Committee do not believe that it is in the interest of the public health to place these wash-houses in the basements of our public school buildings, to there accumulate the uncleanliness which may be brought in on the bodies of the children. More or less foul odors must necessarily come from this practice, and your Committee feel that the suggestion that eventually these wash-houses be used for the general public is not in the interest of proper sanitation.

It is to the credit of at least one member of the Committee that he replied to this as follows:

...

One would infer that the new Paul Revere School-house was not to be connected with the sewer at all. One would think that the accumulation of filth was to be kept there in the building. It is perfectly absurd to say that it is impossible in the basement of a public school building, built as you have to build them in that section of the city, that a bath-house cannot be provided from which no odor whatever can arise. But, if we must have foul odors, let us have them in the basement, and not in the schoolroom. It is not a wash-house at all, by the way, but simply bathing facilities in the basement of a school building.

Later on the Committee on Hygiene reported favorably, the vote standing II in favor and 8 against the sanitary measure. Mention was made at this meeting that, though the committee had spent about $4,000 in one school to do away with unclean odors, they did not succeed in getting rid of them.

From the annual report of the School Committee of the city of

Boston for the year 1899, I extract the following description of the school baths at the Paul Revere School:

Not alone is the Paul Revere School notable for its attractive exterior and interior, its artistic decorations and the historic name it bears, but from the fact that it is the first school-house in Boston to contain bathing facilities for pupils. This school is located in one of the most congested sections of the city, inhabited by a dense population, consisting mainly of Hebrews and Italians, with a lib

eral percentage of other nationalities. . . . It was fitting, therefore, that in this crowded section should first be tried the experiment of school baths. Two sets were installed in the new Paul Revere School, one for each sex, at opposite ends of the basement, which are open every school-day. On the girls' side there are ten individual compartments, each containing a seat and a spray. These compartments are of slate on three sides, with the entrance screened by a rubber curtain hung from rings, which can be drawn at the pleasure of the occupant. There are also in the same room thirty dressing closets, each containing a seat, hooks for clothing, and provided with a self-closing blind door. The floor is of concrete, covered with movable slatted walks made in short sections. The "Gegenstrom" system is in use, whereby the tem