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UNIVERSITY COURIER.
not a boarding-club, but furnishes its members with clothing, books, fuel, and supplies of all kinds. The plan seems to work well, is a great saving to students, and might be adopted with advantage in K.S.U. Our space forbids further detail, but in the September number we will have something more to say on this subject.
NORMAL.
SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE.
A Commonwealth whose prairies are noted for their many school-houses—whose people pride themselves on the possession of the latest methods of training youth—whose teachers are recognized as an influential and energizing force—whose public endowment fund is the largest in the Union—such is ours.
As a state we should be justly proud of our educational advantages and mindful that a haughty pride is prone to be succeeded by a fall.
While each community receives material aid from the purse of the state, it must also provide liberally for its own support. In doing this how many thousands of home comforts are sacrificed! And the offerings thus made sacred by their consecration—are they as sacredly expended? Bring to mind your own neighborhood schoolhouse; contemplate it in all its relations to its use; has it been properly built and preserved in accordance with the means expended? Those who visit schools frequently will most likely say "no." There will probably be found lacking that which Economy could have provided, and things provided which not only Economy but Extravagance would reject.
When the erection of a school house is contemplated let all experimental plans be cast aside; for in this age books on school architecture and men who have devoted, more or less, attention to the subject may be found in every community, so that school boards have no excuse to plead ignorance of building.
In determining the location of the school grounds which is by no means an unimportant matter, its healthfulness, dryness, height, water, convenience of access by roads, advantages as a play ground, etc., should receive careful consideration.
Every school ground should contain a well if a spring is not near at hand. Cistern water, depending largely for its purity on the amount of disturbance it receives, will be neglected too long during the summer vacation. But either well or cistern requires watching.
When the lot has been selected, the best site it offers for the house must then be chosen. School houses containing but one class room on each floor will receive best light and ventilation if the windows are placed on the north and south side of the room. A north and south breeze, adds much to the comfort of the pupils in this climate in the early fall, but the afternoon sun streaming through west windows is very uncomfortable at that season of the year on account of the heat and is so at all seasons on account of the light. As cross rays
of light injure the eye, windows should not be placed in adjacent sides of the room. The amount of light necessary, depends on the size of the room; authorities say that the window surface should be one fifth the area of the floor. For these and many other reasons which space forbids recounting, the writer believes that the main room or rooms in small school buildings will be best placed with the longer directed due east and west and lighted by windows on the north and south sides only.
A frequent error is planning the rooms too large. I have in mind two buildings of four rooms each, capable of seating 130 primary pupils in one room, and 98 grammar school pupils in a single room. A more lamentable fact is that the rooms are nearly full.
Another school comes to mind-A large two story brick building with two rooms, each of which would seat 80 pupils. At least one fourth the floor surface was waste room because of the width of the aisles. There were but 35 pupils assembled here-all in the lower room, which required two stoves to keep it warm. What unavailing economy in the former instance! What bountiful extravagance in the latter! Had the surplus above actual need been put into a school library, the results of a term's work in the latter would have been much more apparent.
The area of the floor determines the size of the house; and the size,style and number of desks,width of aisles and teacher's platform—determine the area of the floor.
So the furniture and the room must mutually fit—and no definite rule can be given regarding size. In general 24x36 will answer the greatest number of cases.
Sixty pupils are as many as any ordinary teacher can manage successfully, and unless an extraordinary teacher can be depended upon year after year, the space devoted to any more than this number will be wasted.
Blackboards should be low enough for the smallest pupils and high enough for the teacher to use without stooping.
Put the stove as far from the teacher's platform as practicable.
Have the steps whether inside or outside sufficiently low to accommodate the smallest children not more than a 6 or 7 inch rise.
Have the water conducted from the eaves. Drain the grounds also. And if care is exercised, good judgement used, and attention given to details much of the work of the school room may be thus facilitated. The surroundings should be as attractive as means will permit and Shakespeare's whining school-boy with the snail like movement will be known only through that author's works.
New styles wall paper. Bates & Field Window Shades. Bates & Field. Elegant Photographs at Mettner's. Picture Frames. Bates & Field. Nobby Straw Hats at Bromelsick's.
C. J. S.