EDUCATION, TORONTO, JANUARY, 1873. Ontario. I. IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOL HOUSE ARCHITECTURE, With a view to aid Trustees in the desire to improve the We are the more anxious to insert these plans at this early day, in order that they may be available to the Trustees before they give out contracts in the spring for the erection of the new School Houses We cannot but be gratified at the laudable desire felt in many places to make the School House more convenient and attractive than formerly. They have, hitherto, in many cases, been unsightly, inconvenient and most incomplete in many essential details. An inerior of four bare walls was, in numberless instances, considered sufficient to constitute a School House-a simple 'oom destitute of any Accommodation for the eacher-for the pupils' ats, caps or coats-for he books, maps or harts. In fact, in some chools none of the latter vere ever to be found, nd the teacher was left No. 1. to do his work literally without tools or appliances of any sort! Happily, this state of things is fast passing away; and Trustees are now generally not only anxious to be informed of the best methods to be adopted and the most useful suggestion to be acted upon, but are most anxious to avail themselves of both. In another part of the "Journal" we insert the result of the recent competition for original School House plans by trustees, teachers and inspectors in this Province. The competi tion, as will be seen, has been highly creditable to the parties concerned. (See p. 16.) IMPORTANT PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS IN ERECTING SCHOOL HOUSES. In erecting School Houses, it should be borne in mind that the essential conditions to be observed in their construction are, that they should be convenient, adapted to the purpose to which they are put, and that they should afford abundant facilities for warmth, light, proper ventilation and shelter. We might class with these another scarcely less important, viz., In adorning and decorating School-houses, however, care should durability. Hence the strength and stability of walls, the tightness be taken lest the cost exceed the means or inclination of those for of roof and outside covering, are matters of prime interest; and if whom it is built. Neither should any mere ornament interfere neglected in the outset, no subsequent expenditure of skill or labour with health or comfort. can provide a remedy. To secure these results, attention should be specially paid to two things. 1. The materials used should be excellent in quality. PRINCIPLES TO BE OBSERVED. way compatible with the preservation of their health, it were bet- 1. THE SITUATION.-This should be at a distance from all sources HEALTH.-The preservation of health should be considered a matIt is a false economy that consents, under any circumstances, to ter of prime importance in the erection of every School-house. use inferior materials. There may be, in the beginning, a small Everything else, including cost, comfort, and convenience, should saving of cost, but the result will be premature decay, and conse-be subordinated to this. Unless our children can be educated in a quent expense for rebuilding. The greatest care should be taken to procure bricks properly burned, straight-grained timbers for frames, sound roof-boards and siding, floor-boards without knots, shingles of the first quality, and fresh-burned lime. These precautions can not be too strongly urged. A single stick of bad timber will sometimes ruin a whole building; and many a brick wall has fallen in consequence of using lime which has been too long exposed to the action of the air. The money annually expended in repairs occa- of malaria. The foul breath of decaying vegetation, or of stagnant sioned by the use of poor materials, is more than triple that in-water, becomes a fruitful source of disease and death. Unseen and crease of the first cost, which would have entirely obviated the unnoticed, it insidiously does its work, and spreads the atmosphere difficulty. Every part of the materials should be carefully examined of the charnel-house as far as its influence extends. The diseases by competent judges, and all except the very best, rejected. seeming to be epidemic, which sometimes break out in Schools, may 2. The work should be well done. often be traced to some neighbouring swamp or marsh, or heap of Job-work, as it is usually termed (often another name for work rotting vegetables. Some manufactures also generate disagreeable miserably performed), can not be too earnestly deprecated. With gasses, which, if breathed for any considerable time, are deleterious the best of materials a careless or unskilful workman will construct in the extreme. The School-house should be placed at a distance a worthless building. Lumber of the best kind may be worse than from all these sources of disease. wasted by a slovenly manner of framing and adjusting it. Shingles Again; it should be situated away from the noise and dust of the poorly laid will be followed by leaks, which must seriously damage street. There is scarcely anything more annoying or unwholesome the plaster and inside finish. Foundations insecurely built will rack than the clouds of dust which, upon a dry summer's day, are driven and destroy every other part of the building. Window-frames im- along the highway, covering and clogging everything in their path. perfectly constructed, siding and floors loosely laid, and doors with Let the location, if possible, be upon a hill-side, where it may be yawning joints, all allow the entrance of the cold and storms, and free from these annoyances, and where the purest air is poured out thus become the source of unnecessary expenditure for fuel, as well in unstinted measure. as of serious injury to the entire structure. Lath and plaster badly 2. THE SIZE OF THE SCHOOL-ROOM.-This is a consideration of put on, last but a short time, and constant patching presents an un- great importance. Every pupil should have sufficient room to sit sightly appearance, besides being the cause of annoyance and ex- and move without being confined or jostled by any one else; and pense. Surely no further specification is needed to satisfy the most there should be sufficient space in the room for a large reservoir of reluctant, that the truest economy demands such an expenditure for air. Packing children close together, so that the breath and atmoslabour in the outset as shall secure the best possible construction. phere of each is shared with all his neighbours, is an unmitigated Faults in workmanship should be carefully provided against, and evil. The rule laid down on this subject in the official regulations every part of the work should be subjected to the closest scrutiny. are as follows:-The vitality of the air is exhausted by breathing, But workmen are not alone to blame for improper construction. It and a constant supply of fresh air is necessary to preserve life and is quite as often the result of false economy or parsimony on the health. Air, absolutely pure, is essential to the highest degree of part of trustees. The estimates of mechanics are often cut down health. Rendered partially impure by breathing, it will enstain life, without an intelligent reason, upon the assumption that they are not but then all the machinery of the body becomes clogged, and the made in good faith. In consequence, the workmen, who perhaps brain is so enfeebled as to be unable to perform its functions. Every are forced by circumstances to undertake the job, are obliged to person contaminates, and renders unfit for use, at least five cubic slight their work to save themselves from absolute loss. The injury feet of air per minute. A School-room, twenty by thirty feet in resulting does not end with the work imperfectly done, but it has a size, and ten feet high, would contain six thousand cubic feet of air. direct tendency to impair that confidence in man which is the basis Forty scholars would consume this, and render it unfit for sustainof all true humanity, and to lead to a regular system of deceptions ing the bodily functions, in just thirty minutes. Yet a larger numon the part of both employer and workman. Let those having ber are often confined in a smaller room, and during a much longer charge of the construction of buildings therefore beware of offering time, without any possibility of a change of air. The effect of this a premium for poor work by paying less than good work is worth. Let them remember that the labourer is worthy of his hire," and that to extort labour for less than its value is only a safe and legal species of robbery. is to excite disease and impair the more delicate organs of the body. The most virulent poison could scarcely be more fatal. The only remedy is to provide means for the rapid and frequent change of the air in the room, throwing out that which is contaminated and In the erection of every School-house particular care should be impure, and replacing it with that which is fresh from without. taken to observe the rules of taste as regards form. In our country In every School-house without proper means of ventilation, there is districts, where a small and plain building only is demanded, we a slow and subtle poison which enters the blood and brains of the puneed to consider proportion and symmetry alone; the other princi- pils, and saps the very foundation of life. There can be no escape ples of architecture applying chiefly to larger and more pretending from its deleterious influences, for exposure to it is a violation of one structures. If this is done, if our School-houses all conform to of the laws of God. these two fundamental laws, they can not fail of becoming strong educational influences in the right direction. The advantages, in this regard, of obeying the principles of architecture in the construction of School-houses may be summed up in a few words. 1. If the building is an object of beauty, the very sight of it inspires emotions of pleasure. 2. It adorns and beautifies the landscape of which it forms a part. 3. It becomes an attractive place to children, and does not repel them, as now, by its deformity 4. It practically teaches ideas of proportion and symmetry, and new and exalted conceptions of beauty of form. 5. It throws over property the shield of beauty, and so checks, and finally eradicates the rudeness which is stimulated to destructiveness by deformity. 6. It forms one of those influences which have most power over the heart and affections, directly aiding the teacher in the most difficult and important part of his work. 3. THE CONSTRUCTION OF SEATS AND BENCHES.-For the health of the pupil, as well as for his comfort, the height of the seats ought to be so graduated as to enable him to set his feet squarely on the floor. A contrary custom often produces much suffering and a distortion of the lower limbs. Seats without backs are also to be deprecated. To relieve the overstrained muscles, unnatural postures are assumed, and a crooked spine is a very probable conse4. PROPER ATTENTION TO CLEANLINESS.-As health can not be preserved without habits of personal neatness, so it is useless to inculcate these upon pupils while the dirty condition of the room they are obliged to occupy forbids the acquisition or preservation of those habits. quence. EXTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS. 1. THE LOT.-A large and commodious School lot is a matter of prime necessity. Without it, some of the most essential ends of education are impossible to be attained. A little attention, on the part of trustees will secure an ample lot at very little expense. of good materials, and put up in a solid manner. A picket, or a When public attention has been sufficiently turned to the impor- post-and-rail fence, would answer every purpose. The gates should tance of this subject, it will be a comparitively easy matter to secure be built strong and heavy, and so arranged as to shut of themselves. the donation of a School lot, or, at least the purchase of one at a It might be well to set posts within the gates in such a manner that small price. About one acre of ground is necessary for our ordinary cattle could not get in, even if the gates should be left open. The country Schools. If such a lot can be obtained, a School-house fence that divides the yard should be of a matched stuff, and from should never be erected upon a smaller one. It cannot be less than eight to ten feet high, faced on the boys' side. The wood-house half an acre; but under our law an owner can be compelled to sell door should open into the boys' yard. as large a lot as the trustees require. If no natural obstacle oppose, the centre of the section would seem to be the best place for the School-house; this centre having reference, of course, to population as well as distance. If an acre of land is taken, perhaps it might most conveniently be laid out in a plot sixteen rods front and ten deep. Any other form might be adopted, and under some circumstances, another might be preferable. 2. POSITION OF THE BUILDING.-In a lot, sixteen rods by ten, the house should stand very nearly in the centre. This would be at a sufficient distance from the street to avoid all noise and dust, with room enough in the rear for the necessary out-buildings. would also divide the yard into two parts, for boys and girls. In any lot the house should be placed in the middle as to width, and at a distance from the street. The front of the house should always face the street, so that the out-buildings may be thrown into the back-ground, not only in reference to the house, but to the street also. SCHOOL HOUSES FOR THE COUNTRY. Fig. 1. a A small school may be well accommodated by a plan like that represented in Fig. 1. It consists of a school-room with a single porch in front, and a wood-house in the rear. The room represented contains seats for twenty-four pupils, but by increasing the length three feet there will be room for one more row of seats, and for thirty pupils, and by increasing its width four feet, it will contain still another row of desks, and seats for forty pupils. The porch is a single room, but of sufficient size for a lobby for cloaks and hats. The stove is to be placed in one of the niches in front, while the other niche may be used for a library. The ventilators in this, as in all the designs, are placed in the rear of the room, but each one is connected with the chimney by a tube under the floor. The wood-house in the rear serves the double 3. OUTSIDE STRUCTURE.-In most cases, a double porch, with separate entrances for boys and girls, or two separate porches should be provided, and this arrangement is regarded as highly important. It prevents the possibility of improper communication between boys purpose of back hall or entry-way, and a place of storage for fuel. and girls, while passing in and out of the School-room. The room The doors upon the sides should open respectively into the boys' in or off the lobby should be used for a hat-room, at a manifest saving of expense. 4. WOOD-HOUSE.-The wood-house might be placed directly in the rear, so that a portion of it may serve for a back hall. This arrangement contributes to harmony of external appearance, and prevents the out-door air from blowing directly into the Schoolroom. Thus serving a double purpose, the wood-house is almost indispensable. A basement, however, might be prepared for the storage of fuel. Fig 1 b. Ground plan. 5. PRIVIES.-With the yard divided by a high, substantial board fence running from the back side of the wood-house to the rear fence. On every School ground two privies are indispensable. A double privy is decidedly objectionable, for although so arranged as to shut out the intrusive gaze, it can not be made entirely impervious to sound; and the vicious may take advantage of its construction to outrage the feelings of the pure-minded, without the fear of and girls' play-grounds. The front part of the wood-house should detection. A better way would be to separate the privies entirely, be provided with a platform upon a level with the school-house and place them near the middle of their respective yards. The entrances should be upon the rear side, or else a screen should be erected to shield them from observation. 6. WALKS.-That is very false economy which refuses or neglects to furnish the necessary walks in and about the School premises. The country School-house is proverbial for filth. Generally but a step removed from the carriage-path in the street, and without walks of any description anywhere in the vicinity, except a single path of the native soil, the wonder is that it is not more, rather than less, offensive. During some seasons of the year the children must wade through mud and water to reach the School, and not one foot of dry space is provided where they can cleanse themselves until they enter the house itself. The consequence is, that dirt is everywhere, and tidiness impossible. remedy this as much as possible, arrangements should be made to preclude the necessity of getting into the mud, within the School-yard, and to enable the scholars to remove it from their feet, when coming in from the road. A plank or gravel-walk should be laid from the front gate to the front door. The steps at the door should be large and commodious. These steps, and perhaps also a portion of the walk, should be provided with scrapers. A strip To FERGUSON ALC of band-iron, nailed upon the edge of a plank twelve feet long, so that the edge of the iron may rise half an inch above the surface of the plank, will make an excellent and economical scraper, and accommodate a dosen or more pupils at the same time. Plank walks should be extended from the back entrances to the privies, and perhaps around the sides of the School-house. 7. FENCE.-The School-lot can never be kept in order unless it is inclosed by a good and substantial fence; this fence should be built floor, at least four feet wide. This general plan is superior, in having back as well as front entrances, so that access may be had to the play-grounds and outbuildings without disturbance to classes, or to the general order of the school-room. The movements of pupils are not so conspicuous as they would be if, in their entrance and exit, they were always obliged to pass through the front door. Elevation 1. ELEVATION NO. 1.-This elevation is a simple and inexpensive building, with wide projecting eaves that give to it an appearance of comfort and solidity. The porch is finished with a tent-roof, to obviate the necessity of a gable under a gable. It is lighted by small windows in the sides, as the height of the roof would hardly admit of a head window over the door. The windows are grouped together, and the whole design produces a very pleasing effect. If a larger house is built upon this plan, the outside appearance |