 They had to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning, and in addition to the teaching they had to work in the workshops of the school in late hours.The death rate was extreme, and in the first period of the Institute, from 1824 until 1839, one-third of all the children died, mostly of lung diseases.Malling-Hansen understood that the main reason for the lung diseases, was the lack of space in the school - there were too many children in a too small area.