Some people think that we do not need to trouble ourselves about ventilating a room when it is large. They believe that there is air enough in it to last a long time. But this is a mistake. To be sure, the air lasts a little longer in a large room than in a small one still after an hour or so the people in it need to have just as much pure air come in and impure air go out as if they were in a small room.

Whenever you go into a house from out of doors take special pains to notice how the air smells. Notice it when you first go in, because each one of us gets used to air after we have been in it awhile, and then we cannot tell whether it is pure or impure. If it really has any odor, or if it does not seem pleasant as compared to the air out of doors, you may know that it is not pure.

Do not make a mistake and think that air is impure when it is only warm, for warm air may be pure air too. Sometimes you will have to go by the odor that you find when the room "smells close," as we say.

Yet, after all, the great and useful thing for us to know is just what to do to get pure air in and impure air out of our homes.

If the house is old-fashioned, probably the only way is by opening doors and windows. This is a good deal of trouble sometimes; nevertheless, it must be done. To show how little time it takes to change the air, suppose you shut all the windows of your room and light a joss-stick. See how quietly the smoke floats around here and there. Soon the room is quite full of it. Now open windows on opposite sides of the room and see what happens.

If a breeze is blowing in the right direction out of doors, you will find that it pours in at one window while the smoke streams out of the other, and the room is cleared in almost no time. Of course the impure air is pouring out of the room with the smoke, and the pure air is coming in just as fast, though we do not see it.

Stop just here; look around the room you are in and see whether you can tell how the fresh air gets in and how the bad air gets out. You may have to judge by the windows. Notice which are shut and which are open, and see if the wind is blowing; then try to decide whether or not enough air comes in to supply all who need it.

If everything is shut you are breathing impure air and you ought to do something about it.

Nobody can tell exactly how wide open windows need to be, because all depends on the size of the room and the number of people in it also on the size of the windows and the direction of the wind. When a breeze blows, an opening of an inch or two may be enough, but on a quiet day in summer the windows should be wide open.

Some people think that the hall door will give all the air they need, yet they do not take pains to see that the hall itself is getting outdoor air.

When a room has to get its air from windows, there is always danger from drafts. Now a draft is like a small wind in a room, that is, we say there is a draft when the air is moving fast enough for us to feel it. If a window is open on each side of the room where you are sitting, and if you are between them, you are probably in a draft, and I am afraid you will catch cold.

It is curious, but true, that it is easier to catch cold in a draft in a room than in the wind out of doors, even when that wind is blowing hard enough to break the branches of trees.

The reason is that a draft is very uneven. It cools part of the body at a time, and when this is the case the machinery that regulates body temperature does not work well. It does better when the whole body is warm or the whole body cold than when it is warm in one spot and cold in another.

Perhaps the best way with windows is to open them at the top. Then the air blows across the upper part of the room, and not low down where we are sitting; or one window might be open at the top and another open at the bottom.

In any kind of house a fireplace helps more than anything else to keep the air pure.

Perhaps you are in a house that is heated in the best way. In such houses the heat comes from steam pipes or hot-water pipes in every room. Besides that, fresh air is heated in the basement and pours into each room through a register. Then too, there is a ventilator or a fireplace in each room and the impure air escapes through these.

When heating and ventilating are managed in this way nobody need be anxious to open and shut windows, and there is no danger from drafts.

In your own room to-night decide just what is the best way to supply yourself with fresh air while asleep. Fortunately there is always so much of it out of doors that all we have to do is to give it a chance to get into our rooms. When we let it in by the window at night we must be careful to have bedding enough, and we must never sleep in a draft.

Albert S. Lyons

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