CHAPTER II.

THE HOUSE: VENTILATION.

Having settled the four requisites in any home, and suggested the points
to be made in regard to the first one,--that of wholesome
situation,--_Ventilation_ is next in order. Theoretically, each one of us
who has studied either natural philosophy or physiology will state at
once, with more or less glibness, the facts as to the atmosphere, its
qualities, and the amount of air needed by each individual; practically
nullifying such statement by going to bed in a room with closed windows
and doors, or sitting calmly in church or public hall, breathing over and
over again the air ejected from the lungs all about,--practice as cleanly
and wholesome as partaking of food chewed over and over by an
indiscriminate crowd.

Now, as to find the Reason Why of all statements and operations is our
first consideration, the familiar ground must be traversed again, and the
properties and constituents of air find place here. It is an old story,
and, like other old stories accepted by the multitude, has become almost
of no effect; passive acceptance mentally, absolute rejection physically,
seeming to be the portion of much of the gospel of health. "Cleanliness is
next to godliness," is almost an axiom. I am disposed to amend it, and
assert that cleanliness _is_ godliness, or a form of godliness. At any
rate, the man or woman who demands cleanliness without and within, this
cleanliness meaning pure air, pure water, pure food, must of necessity
have a stronger body and therefore a clearer mind (both being nearer what
God meant for body and mind) than the one who has cared little for law,
and so lived oblivious to the consequences of breaking it.

Ventilation, seemingly the simplest and easiest of things to be
accomplished, has thus far apparently defied architects and engineers.
Congress has spent a million in trying to give fresh air to the Senate and
Representative Chambers, and will probably spend another before that is
accomplished. In capitols, churches, and public halls of every sort, the
same story holds. Women faint, men in courts of justice fall in apoplectic
fits, or become victims of new and mysterious diseases, simply from the
want of pure air. A constant slow murder goes on in nurseries and
schoolrooms; and white-faced, nerveless children grow into white-faced and
nerveless men and women, as the price of this violated law.

What is this air, seemingly so hard to secure, so hard to