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Show SCHOOL HEADS RETURN J wim bug pis Observation of Structures in IS Cities Furnishes Valuable Lessons, Careful Provision Against Errors to B 3 Made in Expenditures 1 ' Expenditure by the city board of 1 education or lho $2,130,000 realized I upon the bonds authorized at this ! spring 's city school bond election is . to be undertaken, under a careful plan ! of provision against errors, i To this end, the principles mistakes is well as successes in building of i school buildings in eighteen of the prin-ipal prin-ipal cities of the United Siates arc being chronicled for the board's iufor-I iufor-I mation. ' j President. II. A. Smith, of the board L j uf education, and II. P. Bowman, super-intendent super-intendent of school buildings, are back after several weeks spent in visiting the cities in question. Their observations observa-tions are all "iced'-' away in a voluminous volumi-nous notebook which 'Mr. Bowman i guards more preciously than jewels. From this book of notes the report, of the president of ihe board and director of buildings will be prepared within the next week for sumnission at the iu-xt regular meeting of the board of education,. Tuesday, July 8. Would Conserve Space. Both President tmith and Mr. Bowman Bow-man reported they had seen much that should safeguard" Salt Lake against errors of construction in the present building campaign. The principal problem with which they found some cities successfully and ot hers vainly struggling is 1h;U of conserving space. This is best illustrated in the ease of the use for only a short; period each day of large auditoriums involving a heavy investment. "We saw some exeellonl examples of arrangement, by which the maximum of housing service is had from the money invested in school buiWlinps, as well as some examples of cxiravafjnnt spaco waste,'' Mr. Smith said. "If some of those advantageous arrangements can be incorporated in Salt Lake's building plans it should help materially in realizing realiz-ing the most possible out of the funds we have to spend.'' Materials Examined. Mr. Bowman said he got invaluable information upon poinls of various construction, con-struction, materials. In some instances, he said, he was forced W revise his opinions as to the worth of materials. A careful record was kept in his notebook note-book as to the way in which various kinds had stood the test of time and usage iu places where they had been adopted. I'ot a few were found to bo worthless, though their first appearance had promised much. a "Of course, this technical infornia- j tion is worth a great deal to us at this-time," this-time," Mr. Bowman said, "but the thing of greatest value is the lessons we had in the solving of the ono big problem which is put dp to city school boards over the country by the practical prac-tical men of affairs. That is the problem prob-lem of availability of school-room space. Business men are accustomed to getting a full return on monev put into buildings. They cannot tolerato the idea of heavy investment in buildings build-ings that are used for but a small proportion pro-portion of each day's time. This is too oiten the case in auditoriums and gymnasiums. gym-nasiums. The answer is to construct for continuous use of all room throughout through-out alj hours of the school day. Problem Is Difficult. "That is bv no means a simple problem. prob-lem. In some places we found that, it had been solved very well: in olliers indifferently well, and in others not at all. It is 'a grievance, and justly so, no doubt, to the mind of the practical-minded practical-minded man, that a school building should be insufficient for proper housing hous-ing of the children attending school in it, though much space in the building is unavailable for a great part of the school day because of its arrangement for specialized and not, general use. "The solution, where successfully accomplished, has been to construct or order buildings so that provision for specialized use of room docs not. interfere inter-fere with us. for general purposes." . |