Open-Air Schools.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18414, 22 June 1925, Page 8

Open-Air Schools.

We make no apology for directing the attention of our readers to the remarks made by Dr. Phillipps to-day in reply

to Mr Bignell's statement 011 open-air schools -winch appeared in Saturday's " Press." We are not particularly concerned, and if it had been less extreme would not be concerned at all, with Mr Bignell's attack on the "enthusiasts «without wide experience" who designed the Fendalton open-air classroom. In any case the actual designer of the class-room has replied so effectively himself that there is nothingfurther to be said. If the opinions supplied by Dr. Phillipps to-day from Dr. O'Brien and • Dr. Wales do not mako Mr Bignell and Mr Winsor feel foolish, they will at least suggest to most people that Mr -Bignell and Mr Winsor took no trouble before they spoke tq get more authoritative opinions than their own. But What concerns our, readers most is Mr Bignell's statement that " the members [of the Board] " arc quite desirous of helping " the open-air crusade if there is any " chance of doing so." There was, and still is, an excellent chance of doing so in Lyttelton street —unless the description supplied to the newspapers some time ago of what it is intended to do at Lyttelton street was grossly inaccurate. The Board gives as one of the reasons why it cannot make an open-air experiment at Lyttelton street that it has already spent £2OO in laying the foundations of the new school. But it has also been announced that the new school will be three schools one hundred feet apart, and if that is a fact the Board has either put down its three foundations very cheaply, or it is still in a position to try an experiment without any loss. It certainly appears that the particular experiment which the Department asked the Board to make at Lyttelton street was a repetition of the Fendalton experiment, and we do not blame the Board for refusing to make that experiment if it had good reasons for objecting to it on the expert side. But %o objection to the Fendalton type of school could be strong enough to rule out fresh-air schools of every type, and we should like to know what indication the Board has given—apart from the Winsor plan—that it is looking for chances of helping the openair crusade. Wo know nothing about the Winsor plan, good or bad. But the fact that it was rejected by the Department does not entitle the Board to assume that there is no acceptable open-air plsn, and that having spent L two hundred pounds, .defiance o£.

medical advice it had bettor go ahead and spend four thousand. It is a very great advance that the Board " will in " all future building have new schools "erected in detached units as much in " accordance with the fopen-air] principle as the Department will permit." We aro particularly pleased also that " the Board accepts with appreciation " the offer of the B.M.A. to co-operate " and make suggestions on the Board' u "plans," and that.the offer will be "made use of by the Board's architect." Apart from everything else, the members of the B.M.A. are busy men who could occupy their time more profitably to themselves than by offering' advice, free, and for nothing', to members of a public body who may or may not take it; and we are glad that the Board realises this. But we should have a great deal more faith in its being "strongly in .favour of fresh-air " schools" if it would put its faith into practice at Lyttelton street, about which the B.M.A. says frankly that it "has been bitterly disappointed."