above the floor of the piers would be a useful adjunct and one that could be added to existing piers without very great expense. The present system of landing passengers on the common floor of the pier, over which to the exit they have to make their way as best they can, dodging teams and truck loads of bales and boxes at the peril of their life, is, to say the least, uncivilized. No steamship company, apparently, would think of providing safe egress for its passengers, as its responsibility ends with placing them safely on shore, but it is curious that the thought that a match or cigar carelessly dropped by a passenger, startled out of his presence of mind by an angry imprecation from a hurrying longshoreman, might produce disaster, has not led to the adoption of more civilized methods. As men will smoke in spite of rules and regulations, a special smokingroom, where the hands at the noon hour or at each change of shift could draw a few of these consoling and refreshing whiffs, would seem to be a reasonable provision to make, and one which would tend to prevent infractions of the rule against smoking.

B

UT fire is not to be dreaded only when one is shut up in a building or on shipboard, and apparatus for the escape from, or the control of, fire is needed in other places than buildings and ships. Those who have had to face a fire in a passenger-car know what is almost the extreme limit of human helplessness, and for the safeguarding of the millions who travel by rail each year the railroads should be forced to provide adequate safeguards in the way of portable extinguishers or apparatus operated from the locomotive. One of the English roads is now, because of a wreck which occurred near a station, equipping all its stations with fire-apparatus, and more than this, is adding to the equipment of its engines a powerful fire-pump and a serviceable length of hose, the needed water being obtained from the tender or from any stream or well that may be accessible. But in cases such as occurred on a Western road, where gas that had leaked from a conveyor suddenly ignited and filled the sleeper instantly with flame, an engineer might proceed for miles without knowing he was drawing behind him a burning car, for an engineer is normally looking out ahead and has no eyes to give to the train behind him. For such cases as this and for the equally dangerous, but more common, mishaps of a train breaking in two, it would be well to enforce the general adoption of a device in use on one of the railways in India, a device which is both adequate and so cheap that the most parsimonious directorate could hardly object to its adoption. The device is simply a mirror attached to the outside of the locomotive cab and adjusted at such an angle that in it is reflected the entire length of the train behind, so that the engineer, without leaning out of his window and turning his head to assure himself that his train is all right, can ascertain the fact by a glance at the mirror so momentary as not to interfere with his outlook ahead.

ton.

HE French Chamber of Deputies has just taken a step in which interesting potentialities are involved, since it sets an example that, if followed, may have a material effect in adding to the architectural interest of the city of WashingThe Chamber has voted a credit of something over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the purchase of a site and the erection thereon of a suitable official residence for the French ambassador. In nothing is our political system more democratic than in the manner in which our own officials are housed, they being, with the exception of the President, left to house themselves as best they can in leased or purchased private houses, and foreign officials, perhaps feeling called on to adopt the fashion of the country, have done the same thing, so you may find a foreign embassy housed in any sort of a house, hotel or apartment. Some ambassadors temporarily own the buildings they occupy, but none, we believe, has ever built one to suit his official needs. But if France set the example and the result prove to be officially satisfactory and artistically interesting, other embassies are not unlikely to follow suit, and if each country should have its building designed in the style in vogue at home, and if these official residences should be built as neighbors in the same quarter or upon the same square, Washington may acquire a permanent exhibition of "foreign pavilions," which will lend a perpetually " Midway" air to the neighborhood, and country visitors will regularly take it in as one of the sights that must not be overlooked. Then, too, as this country is jealously reciprocal in its international dealings, and, when a foreign minister is transformed

into an ambassador, responds by a similar transmogrification of this country's official representative, our architects may expect shortly to have a chance to design an official residence for our ambassador in Paris, but under an appropriation probably much larger than that the French Chamber has just voted, and later there will be further employment in designing similar houses for American democratic simplicity in London, Berlin, Rome, Vienna and elsewhere. The possibilities that can be evolved from this beginning are interesting and it will be amusing to discover what scheming architect first succeeds in getting a bill before Congress nominating him as the architect selected to design the first official home for an American ambassador abroad. The French, unfortunately, have a rather scornful way of thinking that anything in the way of a statue or a monument is good enough to set up in a foreign country, and they may have the same feeling as regards buildings, and so, in place of erecting in Washington a building which will really add to the architectural adornment of the city, they may entrust the work to some one of the designers who have created the architectural nightmares that now house the Exposition of 1900 in Paris.

HE people of this country, we are happy to say, seem inclined to pay attention to the eternal fitness of things and, when they undertake to respond in kind for any favor or honor done them by a foreign country, endeavor to entrust the execution of the symbol to hands that are really capable and intelligences that are really cultivated. Proof of this is to be found in the equestrian statues of "Washington" by Messrs. French and Potter, and of "Lafayette" by Mr. Bartlett, that have just been unveiled in Paris, the first the gift of the Daughters of the Revolution, and the second paid for by contributions from the school-children of the United States, the general Government contributing appropriations more or less large, so that the statues do have some real significance as a token of national amity. Judged by the illustrations that have come to hand, the Washington group is the more satisfactory of the two, though it has at the same time more of the elements of the commonplace than has the other; that is, it has more the air of a portrait-statue from the life, and has not the effect of being the result of a pure effort of the imagination — aided by half remembrances of other statues, which is the main impression one receives from the "Lafayette." Bartlett's work is disappointing in that it seems to be largely made up of unrelated parts embodying too strong reminders of well-known pieces of equine sculpture elsewhere. Thus the crest, eyes and ears of the horse are distinct reminders of Frémiet's work, the forehand is the forehand of a horse of St. Mark's, the tail is the tail of the Colleoni, while the barrel and hindquarters are common to many, and rather commonplace. But it is not easy to model a horse that will not, as distinctly as this, recall in more or less of its parts statues already existing elsewhere. In the pose selected for the Marquis, the sculptor has hardly been more fortunate. It is not a common one, so it is all the more unfortunate that it should at once recall that of the statue of Etienne Marcel, only a few squares away behind the Hôtel de Ville. Considered together, these statues of Washington and Lafayette admirably present what Americans understand to be the different characters of the two men at the time their destinies made them companions: Washington, self-reliant and impressive, Lafayette, impressionable and tending to become merely a hero-worshipper.

T

ras.

HE investigations into the archæology of Central America, which have been carried on with zeal and success by American expeditions, have been rather interfered with by the unwillingness of the Colonial Government to grant permission for the study of the aboriginal remains in British HonduAs much material is known to exist there, the lack of opportunity for examining and comparing the Maya or Aztec antiquities in this part of the country with those already studied elsewhere is a serious bar to the intelligent elucidation of one of the most curious problems of ethnology and history; and the President of the British Archæological Association, the Marquis of Granby, with the coöperation of some of his personal friends, proposes to organize an expedition to make explorations in the ruined city of Tikal, about sixty miles west of Belize. Being exclusively British, this expedition will undoubtedly have free access to the region in question, and the results of its work will be available to the whole scientific world.

ANITARY science teaches that infectious diseases can best be prevented by the speedy and regular removal of all dirt and waste refuse from the centres of population. This axiom applies not only to our city streets and habitations, but also to the human body. One of the functions of the skin is to continually secrete waste products from the body. During this process the outer layers of the skin are continually cast off and renewed. The clothing which civilized human beings wear forms an obstruction to the immediate removal of the dead and cast-off matter, hence the skin excretions are retained on the same longer than is desirable. The waste matters form an incrustation on the skin, are then subject to decomposition, give off bad odors, and impair the proper function of the skin. The chief reason for wearing underwear is to prevent the skin dirt from attaching to the outer clothes, but some of the dirt remains in the undergarments until these are sent to the laundry. Bacteriologists have discovered in such clothes not only dirt and layers of the skin, but also many bacteria and disease germs. It is obvious, then, that both the skin of persons and their underclothing need frequent cleaning, the one in the bath, the other in the wash.

Among the chief causes of air contamination in school-rooms are, first, the lack of bodily cleanliness of many school-children, and second, dirt accumulated both in the pupils' underwear and also in their outer garments.

Ventilation of rooms is usually understood to comprise means for the removal of foul air and for the introduction of a sufficient quantity of purified air, warmed during the winter season, and admitted in such a way as to avoid any draught. I assert, however, without fear of contradiction, that in school-rooms the best system of ventilation must fail to remove entirely the odors arising from unwashed bodies and from unclean garments. It is a matter of common observation that the air of a class-room can be rendered much purer by a removal of the pupils during recess and by some energetic air-flushing accomplished by opening all windows than by the best ventilating system, and this for the obvious reason that two of the chief sources of air pollution-the children themselves and their clothes. - have been removed. Therefore, it follows that the above, generally accepted, definition of "ventilation" is imperfect, that something more is required than the mere introduction of pure air and the removal of foul air. What we must do in ventilating rooms or audience-halls is to remove entirely, or to keep out, all direct sources of impurities which contaminate the inside air. Applied to buildings in general, this means that plumbing fixtures, traps and pipes, which may contain sewer air, must be made free from defects or leaks, that gasleaks likewise must be repaired, and that there must be no accumulations of organic waste matters, like garbage. In school-rooms, in particular, it points to the desirability of frequent and thorough ablutions of the children. Incidentally, it shows that it is desirable to remove from class-rooms the usual wardrobes for the overcoats, head-coverings, umbrellas and rubber-shoes of the pupils. Even where such wardrobes are provided with special ventilating-flues, the odors from a large number of damp clothes are apt to assert themselves unpleasantly. It is vastly better to arrange the wardrobes in the corridors outside of the class-rooms, or else to provide special hat-and-coat rooms for pupils near the entrance-halls of the school. The ventilation system adopted for a school-house, whatever it may be, can be a success only if all sources of noxious emanations are done away with.

The purpose of my paper is to advocate the introduction and establishment of "rain-baths" in the public schools. I do not wish to be understood as considering school-baths an absolute necessity in all public schools. Some school-buildings are located in good neighborhoods, and are attended by the children of people who are tolerably well-to-do, and in whose homes cleanliness can be, and is usually,

A paper by Wm. Paul Gerhard, C. E., Consulting Engineer for Sanitary Works, read at the May 7, 1900, meeting of the American Social Science Association, held at Washington, D. C.

attained. Public schools located in the tenement districts, on the other hand, are very much benefited if some method of bathing the children during school hours is provided, for the largest percentage of the tenement-house population must go without a bath the year round. In the narrow, dark and ill-ventilated quarters which they call their "homes" opportunities are seldom afforded for thorough ablutions.

Some years ago, Dr. Hunter Stewart, of Edinburgh, read a paper entitled, "Ventilation of Public Schools," in which he suggested the establishment of "soap-and-water" baths in schools, assuring his audience that "the use of such would go far to purify their atmosphere." Dr. Oscar Lassar, one of the earliest champions of the rain-bath, asserted that the air of theatres and audience-halls generally was polluted not so much by the products of gas-illumination and the respiratory process as by the noxious exhalations emanating from ill-kept skins, and intensified by the heat due to the crowding together of many persons.

The late Sir Edwin Chadwick, in advocating school-baths, said, "Of the lessons that may be taught in the schools, the practice of cleanliness is of the highest order." In a review of the progress of sanitation during the year 1888, he called attention to new bathing-apparatus especially applicable to schools by which a child may be completely washed in three minutes. "Look at the comparative sanitary result of the washed children of a whole school," he says, "as against the common one of the fouled-air and badly-washed children. Look at the service to the poor mother who has no means of washing."

From Kotelmann's book on " School Hygiene" I quote as follows:"If cleanliness does not prevail in the school-room, and the air is constantly being polluted by filth, no amount of ventilation will prove sufficient. Cleanliness should extend, in the first place, to the pupils themselves. Not only ought their bodies to be scrupulously clean, but also their clothes and shoes.

"In connection with this matter, the school shower-baths introduced by the city of Göttingen deserve more attention from higher institutions of learning than they have hitherto received. For one thing they promote the cleanliness of the skin; and for another, they lead the pupil to desire clean underclothing."

These and similar observations agree entirely with those of the writer, and serve but to confirm the suggestions made in this essay. It is a deplorable fact that the children of the poorer classes of a population, who form the largest attendance in the public schools, particularly in the elementary grades, often show an utter disregard for, and lack of, personal cleanliness. In the tenements the children usually have no facilities for bathing and keeping clean. They may wash their faces and hands daily and this usually, too, in a hasty manner-but the feet are bathed only at rare intervals, and in many cases the main body receives no ablution the entire year. In fact, observation shows that many poor children have not the desire for a cleansing bath at regular intervals, for though we see them flocking to the free floating-baths in summer time in cities situated on rivers or near the seashore, they are attracted there solely by the wish to enjoy the refreshing sensation of the bath or to practise swimming. Assuming, therefore, that school-baths are desirable, if practicable, the question arises: What form of bath should be used in schools? This is answered by considering the object in view, which is to afford the children inexpensive, quickly applied means for ablutions of the whole body. For such a cleansing bath, warm water and soap are required. The former loosens the outer incrustations of the skin, composed of dirt particles and epithelial cells, while the alkali of the soap cuts the grease excretions and assists in removing them.

Warm baths can be given in large swimming-basins, in tubs, and finally by means of simple sprays or douches. Swimming-basins are ill adapted for school-baths, for they are not only very costly to build and maintain, but are not intended for washing and ablutions, and the common use of the water in swimming-basins involves the possibility of the transmission of infectious diseases. Warm tub-baths are likewise unsuitable, for they are more expensive than sprays both in first cost and in maintenance, they require much more space, and a very much larger quantity of water. They also require more time in filling and in emptying, and more labor and attention to keep them clean. In the tub the bather is surrounded by dirty water, whereas in the rain-bath a constantly fresh stream of water pours down upon his body and at once flows off to the sewer. In fact, the same arguments which point to the superiority of the spray or rain baths for people's baths are applicable in their entirety to school-baths. I may reasonably assume that some of the audience are acquainted with my former essays advocating the introduction of the rain-bath. Not the least of the advantages of the douche over the tub bath is that it stimulates the action of the skin by the mechanical effect of the drops of water, and hence renders children more active after the bath, more bright, more eager to learn, and makes them show interest in their studies; whereas a bath taken in a tub has the contrary effect, being usually debilitating. The spraybath is both cleansing and stimulating, and if followed by a gradually colder douche subsequent catching cold may be prevented, and the body is hardened against many forms of disease.

The particular form of douche which I would recommend is the shower of tepid water from an inclined overhead rose or sprinklerhead, having a large number of perforations, each about three-thirtyseconds of an inch in diameter. The rain-bath is sometimes spoken

See the author's essays on "The Modern Rain-bath," and on "Bathing and Different Forms of Baths."

of as a modern form of bath, while others aptly call it "the bath of the future." Dr. Oscar Lassar, in an essay, read at the meeting at Cologne, held on September 18, 1888, of the Association of German Naturalists and Physicians, has drawn attention to the fact that a Greek vase, recovered from the excavations at Volci, an ancient Etruscan city located near the shores of the Tyrrhenean Sea, which vase is now said to be in one of the Berlin Imperial Museums, proves that the rain or spray baths were well known to the Greeks. In a description of the new public bath-house at Breslau, Prussia, Dr. Kabierske illustrates another Greek vase, on which is represented a woman's bath, which shows clearly that the use of the inclined overhead douche was known to the ancient nations. (See Fig. 1.)

In taking the ground that the spray-bath is the best form of bath for use in public schools, I do not wish to be understood as underestimating the beneficial effect of swimming-baths. However good swimming as a form of athletic exercise may be, the school-house proper cannot be regarded as the place for practising such exercises.

The advantages of school-baths are numerous. In the first place, the school-children are offered the opportunity of a weekly cleansingbath, which in most cases they lack in their homes. The children are readily kept clean, and this in turn, as already indicated, is a powerful help in keeping the air of the class-rooms free from disagreeable odors. In addition to the direct benefit derived from bathing there is the indirect advantage resulting from the children being taught and brought up to appreciate cleanliness. In the early summer days a dash of water from a cooler douche serves to refresh the body and to reduce its temperature. Moreover, the bathing together of many children necessarily has the effect of making them more tidy as regards their undergarments. This, in turn, cannot help exerting a beneficial influence in the children's homes, for parents will naturally strive to keep their children cleaner and their garments neater when they know that in undressing together, slovenliness of the dress, or raggedness of the underclothes due to the mother's carelessness or inattention, may reflect unfavorably upon the children. To a certain extent the bathing of children in public schools will exert a beneficial and wholesome influence in fostering habits of cleanliness among the people generally. Above all, the habit of taking baths at regular and frequent intervals, if cultivated and taught during the period of early childhood, is bound to exert a wholesome influence upon the later periods of life.

For all these reasons, school-baths may rightly be considered to be a moral factor in the education of the young. The results even extend farther, and include the betterment of their home life and surroundings.

Is it not a fact that, besides being a detriment to health, lack of cleanliness gradually leads to loss of self-respect, to bad habits, vulgarity and vice? In a measure, school-baths even help to reduce the sharp contrasts which exist between the laboring classes and the well-to-do people.

Experience teaches that a school-janitor can readily manage the bathing-apparatus and control the bathing of the boys, while the janitor's wife may take charge of the bathroom for the girls. The hour for bathing can be set so that it will not interfere with any important studies, but it is well to bear in mind not to continue the bathing during the last school-hour, in order not to expose the children to the danger of catching cold when they leave the school. A good way to avoid this danger at all times is to have the tepid douche followed by a cold douche of short duration, in order to close up the pores of the skin and to harden the body in general.

and covered with a wooden lattice floor. Three large vertical douches were installed and under each was placed a zinc pan, about three-and-one-fourth feet in diameter, and about fifteen inches high, to which a waste-pipe was attached. The douches were arranged to run simultaneously, three children being placed under each douche. The janitor controlled the mixing of the hot and cold water, and the children were not permitted to touch the valves. Two months after the baths were put in operation, seventy-five per cent of the children bathed regularly, although the bathing was not made obligatory.

Later on, the greater advantage of the inclined douche was recognized, and it was also found necessary to provide larger dressingrooms, so that twice the number of children bathing could be accommodated. In this way the bathing of a class was quickly accomplished.

The success of the school-baths at Göttingen was so great that hygienists, school-teachers and principals, city architects and others, visited the new baths in great numbers.

The idea at once became very popular, and in a very short time a large number of German cities provided spray-baths in some of their school-buildings. I will mention only a few of these out of a large number. In Weimar they were introduced in 1886, and soon out of 1,300 children 910 took the baths. In Madgeburg four schools have spray-baths; Königsberg has two school-houses with baths. Berlin had in 1896 four school-baths, Breslau had four in 1887, and since then five more have been installed. Posen has one school-bath. Frankfort-on-Main had in 1896 three, Hanover nine such baths, in which about one hundred thousand baths were given in six years.

Cologne has several schools so fitted up, and in Altona a large school-house has a special spray-bath pavilion arranged in the centre court between the two wings of the school-building. More recently, school-baths were erected in several of the schools of Zurich (Switzerland), also in Copenhagen (Denmark), Christiania (Norway), and in Paris. Wherever such school-baths were introduced, their success was almost instantaneous and so great that the Boards of Education decided to include baths in the specifications for all new school-buildings. At the annual meeting, in 1886, at Breslau, the German Public Health Association passed resolutions endorsing and recommending school-baths for public schools, modelled after those first introduced at Göttingen. There is not a single instance on record where the bathing arrangements placed in public schools were put out of use on account of a slim attendance.

Soon after the year 1891, when the idea of people's rain-baths was first agitated in the United States, a high-school building in Scranton, Pa., was fitted up with spray-baths under the direction of Theo. P. Chandler, an architect of Philadelphia.

In a report on "School Hygiene and School Houses," written by Dr. A. G. Young, for the seventh annual report (1892) of the State Board of Health of Maine, the German school-baths are referred to as follows:

"The advantages of the school-baths observed in European schools are bodily cleanliness of the child, greater care on the part of the parents in keeping the clothes of the school-children neat and clean, improvement of the condition of the school-room air, again in the physical health of the pupil and the increase in the mental freshness and activity. There results, therefore, a physical, a moral and an intellectual gain. Moreover, from more than one of the towns where school-baths have been opened comes the testimony that a good reflex moral influence has been exerted upon the parents and families of the pupils.

"The manifest advantages that have come from the establishment of school-baths in the old countries render it evident that their introduction into some of our own city schools is an experiment worth trying."

In 1895, the writer published a brochure on 66 Bathing and the Different Forms of Baths," from which are quoted the following paragraphs regarding school-baths:

Before presenting a few illustrations of plans for school-baths, let me say a few words about how the establishment of spray-baths in the public schools originated. History informs us that in ancient Greece gymnasia and swimming-baths were often attached to schools. In modern times, a few of the schools in England were provided, some with tub-baths, others with bathing-pools. At one of the large Berlin gymnasiums (high school) there is a complete swimming-bath, besides five tub-baths for preliminary cleaning. The credit of introducing spray-baths into the public schools belongs to Professor Fluegge and Mayor Merkel, both of the university town of Göttingen, in Germany.

The first trial was made there in 1885 in one of the public schools by fitting up in the basement a bath-room, 8 feet long by 164 feet wide, an adjoining apartment of the same size being used as a dressingThe walls were finished with cement, and the floors asphalted 1" Die Kultur-Aufgabe der Volksbaeder."

room.

"Every public elementary school ought to have a proper washing-place, so that the children might wash the whole of the body at least twice a week, as well as their hands and face... Is the custom of wearing the same dirty garments day after day, getting daily more filthy, an unavoidable one? It is this custom which makes the air of rooms so unwholesome in which the lower classes of children assemble, and which frequently produces the first seed of evil in the constitution, especially when they go into the room damp from the effect of a drizzling rain. Every one accustomed to a badlyventilated school-room knows that it is the smell from damp and dirty clothes which is the principal source of the offensive atmosphere.