Chapter 22—Building and Furnishing the Home
Provide Ventilation, Sunlight, and Drainage—In the construc-
tion of buildings, whether for public purposes or as dwellings, care
should be taken to provide for good ventilation and plenty of sunlight.
Churches and schoolrooms are often faulty in this respect. Neglect of
proper ventilation is responsible for much of the drowsiness and dull-
ness that destroy the effect of many a sermon and make the teacher’s
work toilsome and ineffective.
So far as possible, all buildings intended for human habitation
should be placed on high, well-drained ground. This will ensure a
dry site.... This matter is often too lightly regarded. Continuous ill
health, serious diseases, and many deaths result from the dampness
and malaria of low-lying, ill-drained situations.
In the building of houses it is especially important to secure thor-
ough ventilation and plenty of sunlight. Let there be a current of air
and an abundance of light in every room in the house. Sleeping rooms
should be so arranged as to have a free circulation of air day and night.
No room is fit to be occupied as a sleeping room unless it can be
thrown open daily to the air and sunshine. In most countries bedrooms
need to be supplied with conveniences for heating, that they may be
thoroughly warmed and dried in cold or wet weather.
The guestchamber should have equal care with the rooms intended
for constant use. Like the other bedrooms, it should have air and
sunshine and should be provided with some means of heating to dry
out the dampness that always accumulates in a room not in constant
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use. Whoever sleeps in a sunless room or occupies a bed that has not
been thoroughly dried and aired does so at the risk of health, and often
of life....
Those who have the aged to provide for should remember that
these especially need warm, comfortable rooms. Vigor declines as
years advance, leaving less vitality with which to resist unhealthful
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