FOUL AIR AT SCHOOL
CAUSES HEADACHES.
POOR VENTILATING SYSTEM AT
MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
Committee to Petition Board for
Needed Change and for New
Wing to Prevent Present
Overcrowding.
The committee of taxpayers which is formulating plans to petition the board for more room at the Manual Training High School is also to ask for a new system of ventilation.
"The air in the Manual school is so bad that the children go home with headaches," Professor Phillips said yesterday, "and the parents ask if something cannot be done. The present system of ventilation was installed by Professor Morrison, and it has never worked right. The good, cold, pure air that is supposed to be fanned into the room doesn't come, but instead there comes a foul atmosphere laden with all sorts of stale, nauseating odors. I don't know where the trouble is, but I know that something is wrong."
J. H. Brady, the chief engineer of the school, said yesterday that the ventilation system at the Manual Training school had not been put in with his approval.
"I protested against it from the first. Still, there are many buildings in Kansas City with much worse ventilation systems. What the school needs more than anything else is heat regulators. The teachers get interested in their work and the thermometers go up as high as 90. I think that is is too much heat, rather than foul air, that causes the headaches. Still, the system is not by any means perfect, and it should, if possible, be changed," Mr. Brady estimated that the cost of such a change would amount to about $8,000.
The needs of the Manual Training high school are to be discussed at a dinner at the Sexton sometime within the next week or two. In addition to a new wing, the committee of taxpayers will ask for a second 50-kilowatt dynamo for the lighting plant. The committee has also formulated two plans by which the board can acquire ground for the wing. It is proposed to buy two twenty-five foot lots back of the school or close the fourteen-foot alley at the back of the school and buy only a portion of the lots.
