Mr. MORRELL. That does not go through the superintendent of schools at all?

Mr. STUART. No, sir.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. Our contention, under the head of the belief in experts, is that it is no more the business of the teacher to report upon the condition of the school than it is for her to come down early and make the fires and sweep the room. It is neither necessary nor possible in the District of Columbia. Of course, that is what they do in the country.

So that we do believe that the modern trend of putting matters under experts, of having a practical engineer, or, as one of these bills calls him, a practical builder, I think, an individual who is a practical engineer and builder, is a good one. I think in these bills it is an architect or engineer. But whatever his professional qualifications may be, either one or the other would suit the association; but there should be a head-this comes under that point-there should be an expert superintendent of buildings in charge of the physical side of the schools.

Mr. MORRELL. Let me ask you a question there. Is not some supervision of that character exercised by the Engineer Commissioner of the District?

Mr. STUART. Oh, yes.

Mr. MORRELL. How often, for instance, are the schools inspected by the Engineer Commissioner or his agent?

Mr. STUART. The agent of the Engineer Commissioner has practically everything to do with repairs-inspection and repair. ́ For example, there is a superintendent of repairs under Colonel Biddle. Mr. MORRELL. Yes.

Mr. STUART. There is an inspector of buildings under Colonel Biddle. There is an inspector of plumbing also. These men are agents of the Engineer Commissioner, and they are constantly inspecting and are in touch with the school buildings.

Mr. MORRELL. In other words, that branch is being attended to now by the Engineer Commissioner through his agents, he being responsible for the condition of the schools, as I understand it.

Mr. STUART. Yes, sir; that is it.

Mr. MORRELL. And your point is, so far as I can make it out, Mrs. Gitterman, that apart from the superintendence which is now exercised, there should be an additional person appointed who should have either equal supervision with those already doing the work or should have entire supervision of it. Do I correctly understand you? Mrs. GITTERMAN. That everything should be grouped, and that one man should be held responsible for the condition of the schools.

Mr. GREENE. And I understand that is so now. It is all under the Engineer Commissioner?

Mr. MORRELL. The Engineer Commissioner has it all now; yes. Mrs. GITTERMAN. I think Mr. Stuart is describing to you matters of tradition, custom, and usage. I was asking for matters of law. Mr. STUART. I do not want to be understood as saying that the inspector of buildings, under Commissioner Biddle, is an inspector of school buildings exclusively.

Mr. MORRELL. Oh, no; I did not so understand you.

Mr. STUART. Or that the inspector of plumbing is such. But the superintendent of repairs is. He is in charge of repairs to the school

houses.

Mr. MORRELL. To follow out your idea would, so far as I can see, necessitate the taking of these school buildings out of the hands of the Engineer Commissioner.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. May I answer that?

Mr. MORRELL. Yes; certainly.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. We have heard a good deal, both in newspapers and at the first hearing, of the danger there would be in taking the schools out of the hands of the Commissioners, which must mean that at present they are in the hands of the Commissioners, I think? Mr. MORRELL. Yes; that would be the inference.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. There is one member of the Board of Commissioners who has charge of the public schools, and yet we have with us to-day the superintendent of public schools, so that having an official, the superintendent of schools has not, according to the Čommissioner's own showing, taken the public schools out of the hands of the Commissioners. Having a superintendent of school buildings would not take the school buildings out of the hands of the Engineer Commissioner.

Mr. MORRELL. It would probably result, then, in there being a dual inspection and care of the schools. I do not see how it could be otherwise.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. It does not so result now, does it?

Mr. MORRELL. No; but to follow out your idea of having another gentleman appointed to practically do what is now being carried on by the Engineer Commissioner, according to the statement of the superintendent of schools, would

Mrs. GITTERMAN. I do not believe that theory and practice should ever be divorced.

I would like to say that theoretically the relation between a superintendent of school buildings and supplies and Colonel Biddle, the Engineer Commissioner, would be the same as the relation between the superintendent of schools and Commissioner Macfarland. Practically, I should like to say that some years ago there was an examination into the sanitary condition of school buildings, undertaken by the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, which is an association of women from certain colleges-not of all colleges which give bachelors' degrees, but all the graduates of colleges whose standing is approval by the central managers of the National Association-an examination of the sanitary condition of school buildings. We have with us to-day two ladies who took a very active part in that investigation, Mrs. O'Brien, the president of the Civic Center, and Mrs. Darwin, the secretary of the Public Education Association, both of them having taken an active part in that examination, and I will be very glad if you cafe to call upon them to tell what they found in that examination.

We are not saying that the schools have not improved since then, but I do say that things of that kind could be found in Washington only, because there was not one official responsible for the physical condition of the schools under him.

Mr. MORRELL. That would seem to make it appear that the agent of Colonel Biddle, who had that particular matter in charge, neglected his duties.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. No; I would respectfully object to that construction being put upon what I said. He may have done the best he could, where he did not have exclusive control.

Mr. Pou. I would suggest that one of these ladies be invited to speak.

Mr. MORRELL. Mrs. Darwin, will you tell us?

Mrs. DARWIN. I would suggest that you call upon Doctor O'Brien.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ROBERT O'BRIEN.

Mrs. O'BRIEN. I was not the chairman of that committee at that time, but I was a member of the committee. We divided the school buildings among the members of the committee and made a little examination into what might be called the housekeeping of the schools and some hygienic matters. In one school, for instance, we found that about 400 children were using one drinking cup-that is, there was one drinking cup to 400 children.

In connection with this examination we had the able assistance of, I think, Mr. Ball, inspector of buildings. I believe he is inspector of buildings, is he not?

Mr. STUART. Inspector of plumbing.

Mrs. O'BRIEN. We made an examination into the plumbing systems and the steam-heating systems and certain other systems that we found were in use.

This examination showed, more than anything else, that the pay of the janitors should be raised in order to obtain a greater efficiency in the janitor service. I do not think we made any startling discoveries that would reflect any discredit upon the people in charge of repairs and the general business conduct of the schools.

I do not think in any city all schools can be found in a perfect condition from the point of view of repairs or housekeeping. Since then, as I understand it, a chief janitor, or something of that sort, has been employed. I do not know whether it is a permanent official position, or only temporary. He went about and instructed the poorly paid janitors in the management of the heating systems, which they had not understood.

To give you an example of what we found, for instance, we would find back drafts in the ventilators near the floor, which were supposed to be carrying off the foul air. We would find back drafts and various things of that sort, which were due largely, we thought, to the employment of janitors who were not paid enough to insure fitness in the position.

Mr. MORRELL. But you discovered nothing very startling, as I understand it, upon your examination of the physical conditions of the school buildings or of the plumbing?

Mrs. O'BRIEN. Not as a rule, I would say. But we are not experts in those matters ourselves. We did not attempt to show anything particularly on that point, because we did not consider that because some of us were A. B.'s we were experts on that line of work.

Mr. MORRELL. I understood you to say that you were accompanied in your inspection by the superintendent of plumbing.

Mrs. O'BRIEN. Yes; Mr. Ball, the superintendent of plumbing.
Mr. STUART. The former superintendent, not the present one.
Mr. MORRELL. Was he superintendent at that time?

Mr. STUART. I was about to inquire about that time. Was it prior to 1900?

Mrs. O'BRIEN. Yes; it was.

Mr. STUART. That was prior to the present administration of the board of education. The board feels that they have made some improvements. For instance, there is not a tin drinking cup in one of our modern schoolhouses. We have a sanitary drinking fountain. So the common drinking cup has passed away.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. But the common drinking dipper has not. I think it was only last summer that there were open uncovered pails in the halls, out of which the children scooped the water with the dippers; and there was one dipper to 80 children on the school rolls. Mr. STUART. As soon as buildings are constructed by Colonel Biddle he puts into them the sanitary drinking cup. Of course the common drinking cup survives in the older buildings, and will until this new device supersedes it. It costs a good deal of money.

I think, Mr. Chairman, you would get a good deal of valuable information from the Engineer Commissioner along those lines as to what has been accomplished within the last five years in the sanitary condition of schoolhouses.

Mr. MORRELL. The committee will call on the Engineer Commissioner later on.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. May I ask one question?

Mr. MORRELL. Proceed, kindly.

Mrs. GITTERMAN. I think there were three points brought out in Mrs. O'Brien's testimony which rather worked for my point, that the physical state of the schoolhouses should be under an expert.

Here was a body of women unusually fitted, both by sex and by previous mental discipline, for the understanding of housekeeping details, and Mrs. O'Brien's committee found itself confronted with matters which, as she says, they were not experts in; in other words, they did find that they would need an expert, and, in fact, they took an expert in-Mr. Ball.

Secondly, they found that the janitors appointed, not by experts, but by the board of education, did not know how to handle their own heating plants, put in at the public expense for the use of the children; and the discomforts coming from that I need not dwell upon; so that now a chief janitor has been put in. Which practically gives me my point, that the matter should be under the hands of some one person.

Now, we submit that "chief janitor" is not a dignified enough office, and that the man in that place, while needed there, would not be a man of broad enough expert education to have charge of more than the heating plants and the shoveling of snow and so forth.

Under the third point is the matter of back drafts. I do not qualify as an expert in them, but the matter of a back draft means that every child who was trying to sit in a schoolroom which was supposed to be warmed was being poisoned; that the vitality of every child was being reduced; that the power of mental assimilation was being reduced, and that that child was being injured mentally and

physically in a school erected by the public for the benefit of that child.

So it seems to me these points which have been brought out have been of great value.

Mr. GREENE. What is your system of appointment of janitors? Mr. STUART. The janitors are appointed by the committee on janitors.

Mr. GREENE. Do they pass any examination as to qualifications as to handling steam boilers?

Mr. STUART. Engineers are employed. Where there is a steam plant, the janitor must hold an engineer's license.

Mrs. DARWIN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say here that the result of the investigation of that committee of ladies was embodied in a report.

Mr. MORRELL. I was just going to ask you whether there was such a report.

Mrs. DARWIN. There is such a report made to Congress.

Mr. MORRELL. Do you know where it is?

Mrs. DARWIN. I can not now lay my hand on it, but I think I could get hold of a copy.

Mr. MORRELL. I would be glad if you would present it to the committee.

Mrs. DARWIN. It was published at the Government Printing Office. (Subsequently handed in, Friday, March 2.)

(At 12.30 o'clock p. m. the committee adjourned until to-morrow, Wednesday, February 28, 1906, at 9.30 o'clock a. m.)

SUBCOMMITTE ON EDUCATION, LABOR, AND CHARITIES,
COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

Washington, D. C., Wednesday, February 28, 1906. The subcommittee met this day at 9.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Edward De V. Morrell in the chair.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe it was arranged at the meeting yesterday, Mr. Leisenring, that you were first to address the committee?

Mr. LEISENRING. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you kindly state your full name?

STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS S. LEISENRING.

(Mr. Leisenring's remarks are on file, but are omitted as not being pertinent to the subject-matter of the bills.)

STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH A. GOULDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW YORK.

Mr. GOULDEN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, in the first place, I have no doubt you are glad to learn that I have another committee appointment this morning and must leave and quit here shortly. This will be a case where brevity will be the soul of wit. I have enough material here on this subject to take two hours of your time, which, I presume, you would not be willing to grant.