第54章 CHAPTER III(5)

NOTES:

1. A single illustrative instance may serve to show how the land lies in this respect, even though it may seem to the uninitiated to be an extreme if not an exaggerated case; while it may perhaps strike those familiar with these matters as a tedious commonplace. A few years ago, in one of the larger, younger and more enterprising universities, a commodious laboratory, well appointed and adequately decorated, was dedicated to one of the branches of biological science. To meet the needs of scientific work such a laboratory requires the services of a corps of experienced and intelligent assistants and caretakers, particularly where the establishment is equipped with modern appliances for heating, ventilation and the like, as was the case in this instance. In this laboratory the necessary warmth was supplied by what is sometimes called the method of indirect steam heat; that is to say, the provision for heat and for ventilation were combined in one set of appliances, by bringing the needed air from the open through an outdoor "intake," passing it over steam-heated coils (in the basement of the building), and so distributing the air necessary for ventilation, at the proper temperature, throughout the building by means of a suitable arrangement of air-shafts. Such was the design. But intelligent service comes high, and ignorant janitors are willing to undertake what may be asked of them. And sufficient warmth can be had in an inclement climate and through a long winter season only at an appreciable expense. So, with a view to economy, and without the knowledge of the scientific staff who made use of the laboratory, the expedient was hit upon by the academic executive, in consultation with a suitable janitor, that the outdoor intake be boarded up tightly. so that the air which passed over the heating coils and through the air-shafts to the laboratory rooms was thenceforth drawn not from the extremely cold atmosphere of outdoors but from the more temperate supply that filled the basement and had already had the benefit of circulating over the steam coils and through the ventilating shafts. By this means an obvious saving in fuel would be effected, corresponding to the heat differential between the outdoor air, at some 0* to -20* and that already confined in the building, at some 60*. How long this fuel-saving expedient was in force can not well be ascertained, but it is known to have lasted at least for more than one season.

The members of the scientific staff meantime mysteriously but persistently fell sick after a few weeks of work in the laboratory, recurrently after each return from enforced vacations. Until, in the end, moved by persistent suspicions of sewer-gas -- which, by the way, had in the meantime cost some futile inconvenience and expense occasioned by unnecessary overhauling of the plumbing -- one of the staff pried into the janitor's domain in the basement; where he found near the chamber of the steam coils a loosely closed man-hole leading into the sewers, from which apparently such air was drawn as would necessarily go to offset the current leakage from this closed system of ventilation.

2. This is a nearly universal infirmity of American university policy, but it is doubtless not to be set down solely to the account of the penchant for a large publicity on the part of the several academic executives. It is in all likelihood due as much to the equally ubiquitous inability of the governing boards to appreciate or to perceive what the current needs of the academic work are, or even what they are like. Men trained in the conduct of business enterprise, as the governing boards are, will have great difficulty in persuading themselves that expenditures which yield neither increased dividends nor such a durable physical product as can be invoiced and added to the capitalization, can be other than a frivolous waste of good money; so that what is withheld from current academic expenditure is felt to be saved, while that expenditure which leaves a tangible residue of (perhaps useless) real estate is, by force of ingrained habit, rated as new investment.