CIRCULAR. In his Annual Report to the General Assembly, May Session, 1850, the undersigned expressed his intention to prepare and issue a series of Tracts or Essays on the most important topics of school improvement, for general dissemination among parents, school officers, and teachers. Among the subjects specified, (Report for 1850, p. 77,) was the following: "Practical Hints for the Construction and internal Arrangements of Schoolhouses. "Public attention is already aroused in many districts, to the evils and inconveniences of the old, dilapidated, and unventilated structures now occupied by the schools, and the relations which a good school-house bears to a good school, and it is proposed to aid the efforts which may be put forth in such districts by circulating a pamphlet, in which practical hints and approved plans for structures of this kind shall be set forth, and builders and committees be referred to such buildings as have been recently erected in this and other states, which can be safely designated as models." The following pages were prepared originally for this purpose, by selections, with some modifications, from a larger work on School Architecture. The Essay thus prepared, was subsequently adopted by a Committee appointed to report on the same subject, to the National Convention of the Friends of Public Education, held in Philadelphia, on the 23d, 24th, and 25th of August, 1850, as embodying substantially their views. The Report of this Committee is herewith published for the historical information contained therein. Hartford, November 1, 1850. HENRY BARNARD, Superintendent of Common Schools. NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. Vere Foster, Esq., of London, having expressed a wish to circulate an edition of the PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE among school officers and friends of educational improvement in Great Britain, and especially in Ireland, this edition is issued for this purpose, with a few of the new plans introduced into the edition of the original treatise published by W. H. Derby & Co., Cincinnati, 1854. To that treatise the reader is referred for a full exhibition of the present state of School Architecture in this country. The contents of the edition of 1854 will be found at the close of this volume. HARTFORD. CONN., February 16, 1854. H. B. (RECAP) |