CLASS ROOM VENTILATION.

The subject of class room ventilation has for years received more or less frequent comment and discussion. The value of fresh air and the present inadequate system used in the majority of class rooms (particularly those in Sever Hall) serve to keep the topic before the undergraduate mind.

The practice of the German gymnasium in this matter offers the University a simple and satisfactory solution of the ventilating problem. In Germany, lectures and recitations are limited to fifty minutes. Immediately upon the close of the recitation, the windows of the class room are opened wide and remain so for the intervening ten minutes. At Harvard there is a period of seven minutes between lectures. It might easily be made the duty of the departing monitor to open all windows. Even this would be ineffective, however, if there were not also a rule that the windows be left open until seven minutes past. By such a system class rooms would receive a thorough airing every hour. It is true that there are at present some professors and instructors who follow this plan, but the practice is by no means universal. If it were, we should no longer be frequently forced to remain an hour in a class room containing practically no oxygen, but at least one cold-blooded individual with a strong aversion for fresh air and an inveterate habit of shutting windows.