An Electrified School.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 26 February 1912, Page 4

An Electrified School.

Keoently some successful experiments were iinklc near Cricago on the cultivation of plants under the influence of electric currents. In Sweden a similar experiment has been tried on humau beings, and it lias been shown, .apparently, that pupils surrounded by wiiua carrying powerful alternating currents of high frequency make greater progress physically and mentally than they tvould under ordinary circumstances. The test was made under the direction of the well-known Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius. Says a writer in Cosmos:—

"A schoolroom was surrounded on its walls and-ceiling with coils of conducting wire, constituting a vast solenoid, within which the pupils were situated, like an iron core in the coils of an electro-magnet. Through the solenoid were sent currents of high frequency. Fifty scholars wore placed iu this hall; fifty others of the same age and advancement were placed as 'controls' in a neighbouring hall which had no electrical installation. Hie result was that at the end of six months' the electrified scholars had grown on an average 51 millimetres (two inches), while the 'controls' had grown only .'32 millimetres. Increase- of weight, etc., was in proportion to this increase in height.

I "From the point of view of stu- ! dies, the development (we are- not ; told by what method the estimates j were made, nor by what scale they i were measured) was 'J2 per cent, on j tlie average for the scholars subject.od to the new methods, fifteen of tliem liaving developed 100 per cent, mentally. Among the 'control' subjects, the development w-as not more than 7o per cent, on an a-vorago, and never reached as much as 100 per cent. The electric treatment also benefited tin-good scholars from the poi, t of view of activity, the rousing of interest, attention, and resistance to fatigue. The teachers also partook of these benefits. "We might be tempted to believe that the ozone produced by tho olcctric discharges, whoso oroud was quite perceptible in the hall, may have played some part in the physiological cffccts observed in the pupils -and their teachers; but the experimentors maintained the contrary."