The Board of Education
image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
cropped image 1
THE BOARD OF EDUCATION.
We suggest to the members of this eminently dignified and conservative body whether it is not moving rather too slowly in regard to the late catastrophe at School No. 14. That building has been consumed solely in consequence of the unsafe contiguity of hot pipes to woodwork, and the same causes are in operation in almost all the remaining schools. There is a possibility of a similar misfortune recurring at other schools, any day of the fortnight which will have elapsed when the Board hold their next regular meeting.
It is perfectly practicable to prevent ignition, by heating the schoolhouses with steam from outside, and there are processes by which wood, if it must be placed in immediate proximity to heating apparatus, can be rendered incombustible. Does not the late fatal accident call loudly enough on the Board to examine these subjects forthwith, knowing that every day’s delay places the lives of children in jeopardy?
Several papers advocate wide staircases, as affording a rapid mode of exit in case of alarm. But is it not preferable to do away the cause of alarm itself? We do not believe that the stairs should be widened at all, beyond their usual size at present. They are now wide enough for two children to pass freely, one holding by the balustrade on each side. If they were made still wider, the children, rushing down with their usual precipitancy on leaving school, would hurl those in the centre to the foot of the stair. In case of panic the casualties would be vastly more numerous than they have now been by suffocation.