SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE.

In treating of School Architecture, it will be convenient to pre

ent

I. Common Errors to be avoided.

II. General Principles to be observed.

III Plans and directions for erecting and fitting up school-houses adapted to the varying circumstances of country and city, of a small, and a large number of scholars, of schools of different grades and of different systems of instruction.

I. COMMON ERRORS IN SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE.

Under this head it will be sufficient to enumerate the principal features of school-houses as they are.

They are, almost universally, badly located, exposed to the noise, dust and danger of the highway, unattractive, if not positively repulsive in their external and internal appearance, and built at the least possible expense of material and labor.

They are too small. There is no separate entry for boys and girls appropriately fitted up; no sufficient space for the convenient seating and necessary movements of the scholars; no platform, desk, or recitation room for the teacher.

They are badly lighted. The windows are inserted on three or four sides of the room, without blinds or curtains to prevent the inconvenience and danger from cross-lights, and the excess of light falling directly on the eyes or reflected from the book, and the distracting influence of passing objects and events out of doors.

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They are not properly ventilated. The purity of the atmosphere is not preserved by providing for the escape of such portions of the air as have become offensive and poisonous by the process of breathing, and by the matter which is constantly escaping from the lungs vapor, and from the surface of the body in insensible perspiration They are imperfectly warmed. The rush of cold air through cracks and defects in the doors, windows, floor and plastering is not guarded against. The air which is heated is already impure from having been breathed, and made more so by noxious gases arising from the burning of floating particles of vegetable and animal matter coming in contact with the hot iron. The heat is not equally dif

fused, so that one portion of a school-room is frequently overheated, while another portion, especially the floor, is too cold.

They are not furnished with seats and desks, properly made and adjusted to each other, and arranged in such a manner as to promote the comfort and convenience of the scholars, and the easy supervision on the part of the teacher. The seats are too high and too long, with no suitable support for the back, and especially for the younger children. The desks are too high for the seats, and are either attached to the wall on three sides of the room, so that the faces of the scholals are turned from the teacher, and a portion of them at least are tempted constantly to look out at the windows,-or the seats are attached to the wall on opposite sides, and the scholars sit facing each other. The aisles are not so arranged that each scholar can go to and from his seat, change his position, have access to his books, attend to his own business, be seen and approached by the teacher, without incommoding any other.

They are not provided with blackboards, maps, clock, thermometer, and other apparatus and fixtures which are indispensable to a well regulated and instructed school.

They are deficient in all of those in and out-door arrangements which help to promote habits of order, and neatness, and cultivate delicacy of manners and refinement of feeling. There are no verdure, trees, shrubbery and flowers for the eye, no scrapers and mats for the feet, no hooks and shelves for cloaks and hats, no well, no sink, basin and towels to secure cleanliness, and no places of retirement for children of either sex, when performing the most private offices of nature.

LEST the author should be thought to exaggerate the deficiencies of school-houses as they have been heretofore constructed, and as they are now almost universally found wherever public attention has not been earnestly, perseveringly, and judiciously called to their improvement, the following extracts from recent official school documents are inserted, respecting the condition of school-houses in states where public education has received the most attention.

CONNECTICUT.

EXTRACT from the" First Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools for 1838-39.

"In the whole field of school improvement there is no more pressing need of immediate action than here. I present with much hesitation, the result of my examinations as to several hundred school-houses in different parts of the State. I will say, generally, that the location of the school-house, instead of being retired, shaded, healthy, attractive, is in some cases decidedly unhealthy, exposed freely to the sun and storm, and in nearly all, on one or more public streets, where the passing of objects, the noise and the dust, are a perpetual annoyance to teacher and scholar, -that no play-ground is afforded for the scholar except the highway,that the size is too small for even the average attendance of the scholars, -that not one in a hundred has any other provision for a constant supply of that indispensable element of health and life, pure air, except the rents and crevices which time and wanton mischief have made; that the

seats and desks are not, in a majority of cases, adapted to children of different sizes and ages, but on the other hand are calculated to induce physical deformity, and ill-health, and not in a few instances (I state this on the authority of physicians who were professionally acquainted with the cases,) have actually resulted in this-and that in the mode of warming rooms, sufficient regard is not had either to the comfort and health of the scholar, or to economy.

That I have not stated these deficiencies too strongly, I beg leave to refer you to the accompanying returns, respecting the condition of schoolhouses in more than eight hundred districts in the State, and in more than forty particulars in each. These returns were made from actual inspection and measurement of school-houses by teachers and others. An abstract of them in part will be found annexed, together with extracts from letters received from school officers on the subject. I might accumulate evidence of the necessity of improvement here for every district in the State. Without improvement in many particulars which concern the health, the manners and morals of those who attend school, it is in vain to expect that parents who put a proper estimate, not only on the intellectual, but the physical and moral culture of their children, will send to the district school.

The following extracts are taken from official documents, published in 1846 and 1847, and fair specimens of the manner in which school-houses are spoken of, in the reports of local committees, from different parts of the State.

"In one district the school-house stands on the highway, with eighty pupils enrolled as in attendance, in a room nineteen and a half feet square, without any outbuildings of any kind.

In another in the same town, the school-house is less than seven feet high, and the narrow slab seats are twenty-one inches high, (four inches higher than ordinary chairs.) The walls, desks, &c., are cut and marked with all sorts of images, some of which would make heathens blush.

In another, the room is fourteen feet square, and six feet five inches high. The walls are very black."

"In this town there is one of the most venerable school servants in the State. The room is small, and less than seven feet high. Slab seats extend around three sides of the room, and are too high for men. The skill of several generations must have been expended in illustrating the walls with lamp smoke and coal images. The crevices of the floor will admit any quantity of cold air. The door sill and part of the house sill have rotted away. The day I visited it, the teacher and pupils were huddled around the stove."

"In one district, the house stands near the travelled road, is low and small, being only seventeen feet by seventeen, and seven feet two inches high, for the accommodation of sixty or seventy pupils. The seats on the outside are from seventeen to eighteen inches. The walls, door, and sides of the house are disfigured with obscene images."

"There are only three good school-houses in the society; only three that have any out-houses. The rest of the school-houses are in a miser able condition. One is thirty-five or forty years old. Most of them have only slab seats, with the legs sticking through, upwards, like hatchel-teeth, and high enough to keep the legs of the occupants swinging. They are as uncomfortable to little children as a pillory. Seats and desks are adorned with every embellishment that the ingenuity of professional whittlers can devise."

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"Two of our school-houses, those in the two largest districts, are in a bad condition, old, unpainted and inconvenient. They are built and con structed inside on the old Connecticut plan. Only one row of desks, and that fastened to the wall of the school-room, running quite around it; and long forms, without backs to rest on, the scholars sitting with their backs to the centre of the room. The other two are in better condition, though one is constructed on the same plan as above. The out-buildings are in bad condition generally. One school-house has no out-building nor wood-house. One school-house only is painted outside."

"Of the nine school-houses in this society, not one is really what they all ought to be, for the morals, health, and intellectual improvement of the pupils. Four of them are considered tolerably good, having one outbuilding, the other five are hardly passable. The desks in most or all of them are where they never ought to be, against the sides of the room and against one end, and with few exceptions, all of a height, with poor accommodations for loose clothes, hats, &c.; all located on or near some highway; no play-ground attached to any of them, except the highway." "A part of our school-houses are comfortable buildings, but destitute of every thing like taste or ornament in the grounds, structure, or the furniture of the rooms. Being generally built in the public highway or close by its side, they are, one and all, without enclosures, ornamental or shade trees. But the want of ornament is by no means the greatest defect of our school-houses; a majority of them are not convenient. Although there has been some improvement in those recently built, yet they are not so good as would be desirable. The out-buildings in too many cases are in a neglected condition, and in some districts are not provided at all, indicating an unpardonable neglect on the part of parents and guardians.”— East Windsor.

"It appears that a great proportion of the school-houses are in a sad condition and of bad architecture. Architectural drawings should, therefore, be scattered over the state, so that in the buildings to be erected those abominations may be avoided which are now so abundant."-Glastenbury.

"The internal construction of most of our school-houses is bad, and occasions great inconvenience and hindrance to the prosperity of our schools. Let as much be done as can be, to remove those miserable prison-houses for our children, and in their stead let there be good, large, and convenient school-houses."-Suffield, 2d.

"None of our school-houses have play-grounds attached; they generally stand in the highway, and some on a corner where several roads meet."Bethany.

"Another evil is the poor, cold, inconvenient and gloomy school-houses which we find in many districts. There is one in this society not more attractive than a barn, for comfort and accommodation in a cold day: the best I can say about it is, it is thoroughly ventilated."—Lebanon, 4th.

"The houses and the internal arrangement are inconvenient; a slanting board the whole length of the house for a desk, and a slab-board for a seat so high that the scholars cannot reach the floor with their feet, constitute the conveniences of half of the schools in this society."-Easton.

"We see many a school-house which looks more like some gloomy, dilapidated prison, designed for the detention and punishment of sonie desperate culprit, than a place designed for the intellectual training of the children of an enlightened and prosperous nation. Instead of being ren