Light-Conditioning

About 22% of all U. S. public school children have poor eyesight. This is not entirely their teachers' fault or the fault of the buildings in which they study. But the percentage might well drop if schools were better lighted, and if busy teachers did not have to be relied on to raise and lower windowshades. So argued Engineer D. W. Atwater of Westinghouse Lamp Co. in a lecture at New York University fast week advocating a light-control device for schoolrooms. In a metal & glass cabinet affixed to the wall is a photoelectric cell adjusted to snap on the lights when, the sun having gone behind a cloud, the school-room's illumination falls below average intensity. In a special class for weak-eyed pupils in Jersey City, N. J., one Westinghouse installation geared to lamps giving an intensity of 30 footcandles* (four or five times the normal classroom light), has helped the handicapped students lift their work well above the standard of children in a neighboring, plain-style classroom. Similar results were obtained after an installation by Alabama Power Co. in Tuscumbia, Ala Ideal for the future and cheaper, urged Engineer Atwater, would be schoolhouses with no windows at all, with air-conditioning and light-conditioning units throughout.

*Footcandle--the amount of light produced by one standard candle at one foot distance.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.