windows because the pipes have rotted away. The narrow stairways
and halls are similar to those of jails and dungeons of a century ago.
The classrooms are poorly lighted, inadequately equipped, and in some
cases so small that the desks of pupils and teachers occupy almost all
of the floor-space."

Another school, located a short distance from Fifth Avenue, the
"wealthiest street in the world," is described as an "old shell of a
structure, erected decades ago as a modern school building. Nearly two
thousand children are crowded into class-rooms having a total seating
capacity of scarcely one thousand. Narrow doorways, intricate hallways
and antiquated stairways, dark and precipitous, keep ever alive the
danger of disaster from fire or panic. Only the eternal vigilance
of exceptional supervision has served to lessen the fear of such a
catastrophe. Artificial light is necessary, even on the brightest days,
in many of the class-rooms. In most of the classrooms, it is always
necessary when the sky is slightly overcast." There is no ventilating
system.

In the crowded East Side section conditions are reported to be no
better. The Public Education Association's report on Public School No.
130 points out that the site at the corner of Hester and Baxter Streets
was purchased by the city years ago as a school site, but that there
has been so much "tweedledeeing and tweedleduming" that the new building
which is to replace the old, has not even yet been planned! Meanwhile,
year after year, thousands of children are compelled to study daily in
dark and dingy class-rooms. "Artificial light is continually necessary,"
declares the report. "The ventilation is extremely poor. The fire hazard
is naturally great. There are no rest-rooms whatever for the teachers."
Other schools in the neighborhood reveal conditions even worse. In
two of them, for example; "In accordance with the requirements of
the syllabus in hygiene in the schools, the vision of the children is
regularly tested. In a recent test of this character, it was found in
Public School 108, the rate of defective vision in the various grades
ranged from 50 to 64 per cent.! In Public School 106, the rate ranged
from 43 to 94 per cent.!"

The conditions, we are assured, are no exceptions to the rule of
public schools in New York, where the fatal effects of overcrowding
in education may be observed in their most sinister but significant
aspects.

The forgotten fact in this case