Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/314

308 having windows on but one side. In these rooms the variation be- tween the first and fifth rows was from seven-fold to ten-fold. By the introduction of screens over the black-boards in the same rooms, the light at the darkest seat was increased as much as 50 per cent. That an increase of 50 per cent, in the light in the dark corners of our school rooms is important is apparent to all. Furthermore, this result can be secured with little or no cost. Most schools possess white screens, light-colored advertising maps, charts printed on white paper, etc. They may be used to cover the black-boards and when thus used they will reflect the light to the very parts of the rooms which need it most.

Because of the lack of attention which is paid to the light actually present in the schoolroom, and because of the great difficulty in adjusting our windows and shades to the varying intensities of the external source of light, it is not surprising that we should find in our schoolrooms conditions of light so bad that during many hours and days the reading of ordinary printed matter without undue strain upon the eyes is impossible.

Until within a very few decades reading was taught by a slow and cumbrous method. The effort of reading was so great that few chil- dren enjoyed the reading of a book until after they had completed the third school year. Interesting books for children were few in number and not available for the vast majority of them. To-day this is all changed. Our methods of teaching reading are so improved that be- fore the child has been in school a full year he begins to read books at home for his own pleasure. Our printing presses are teeming with children's books. Andrew Carnegie, or rather the movement which he so ably supports, has filled city and country with free books avail- able for even the youngest. During the last twelve months I have tested the eyes of some 700 children. I have asked of each child an estimate of the number of books read in the preceding 12 months. One room of 31 pupils for the 12 months preceding the middle of the second school year, gave the following figures. The average number of books read by each pupil was 22. Some had read but few, while others had read many more than 22. One half of the pupils had read 20 books or more. It should be observed that this record of the num- ber of books covers the period from the middle of the first school year to the middle of the second school year. After the second school year many pupils read regularly a book a week. In several of the grade rooms tested, the pupils of the room read on the average as many as 50 books a year. In the first three years after reaching the legal school age not a few pupils in our best city schools read 100 books. This figure is certainly far above the average, but there is a tendency