LB
3218
M4
REPORT
4:
OF THE
SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION,
ON THE SUBJECT OF
SCHOOL HOUSES,
SUPPLEMENTARY
TO HIS
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT
Maes B
ciucation,
Boston:
DUTON AND WENT WORTH, STATE PRINTERS.
1838.
HON. MYRON LAWRENCE,
President of the Senate :
SIR :-I have the honor herewith to transmit to you, for the infor-
mation of the Legislature, a Supplementary Report from the Secreta-
ry of the Board of Education on the subject of School Houses.
I am, Sir, with great respect,
Your obedient servant,
EDWARD EVERETT.
COUNCIL CHAMBER,
29th March, 1838.
REPORT.
TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION :
Gentlemen,
66
In the Report, which I lately submitted to you on the subject of
our common schools and other means of popular education,” I
mentioned school-house architecture, as one of the cardinal points in
the system, and I reserved the consideration of that topic for a spe-
cial communication.
In
my late tour of exploration, made into every county in the
state, I personally examined or obtained exact and specific informa-
tion, regarding the relative size, construction and condition of about
eight bundred school-houses; and, in various ways--principally by
correspondence
I have obtained general information respecting, at
least, a thousand more.
As long ago as 1832, it was said by the Board of Censors of the
American Institute of Instruction, that “if we were called upon to
name the most prominent defects in the schools of our country,-
that which contributes most, directly and indirectly, to retard the pro-
gress of public education, and which most loudly calls for a prompt
and thorough reform, it would be the want of spacious and conve-
nient school-houses." As a general fact, I do not think the com-
mon, district, school-houses are better now, than when the above
remark was written. I have, therefore, thought, that I could, at
this time, in no other way, more efficiently subserve the interests of
the cause in which we are engaged, than in bringing together and
presenting under one view, the most essential points respecting the
1
6
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
structure and location, of a class of buildings, which may be said to
constitute the household of education.
I do not propose to describe a perfect model, and to urge a uni-
versal conformity. It is obvious, that some difference in construc-
tion is necessary, according to the different kind of school to be
kept.' In each case, it must be considered, whether the school-
room be that of an academy or of an infant school; whether it be in
the city or in the country; for males or for females, or both;
whether designed to accommodate many scholars or only a few; or,
whether the range of studies to be pursued is extensive, or elemen-
tary only. The essentials being understood, the plan can be modi-
fied for adaptation to each particular case.
The school-houses in the state have a few common characteris-
tics. They are, almost universally contracted in size; they are sit-
uated immediately on the road-side, and are without any proper
means of ventilation, In most other respects, the greatest diversity
prevails. The floors of some are horizontal; those of others rise in
the form of an amphitheatre, on two, or, sometimes, on three sides,
from an open area in the centre. On the horizontal floors, the seats
and desks are sometines designed only for a single scholar; allow-
ing the teacher room to approach, on either side and giving an opportu-
nity to go out or into the seat, without disturbance of any one. In
others, ten scholars are seated on one seat, and at one desk, so that
the middle ones can neither go out nor in without disturbing, at least,
four of their neighbors. In others, again, long tables are prepared,
at which the scholars sit face to face, like large companies at dinner.
In others, the seats are arranged on the sides of the room, the walls
of the house forming the backs of the seats, and the scholars, as they
sit at the desks, facing inwards ; while in others, the desks are at-
tached to the walls, and the scholars face outwards. The form of
school-houses is, with very few exceptions, that of a square or ob-
long. Some, however, are round, with an open circular area in the
centre of the room, for the teacher's desk and a stove, with seats
and desks around the wall, facing outwards, separated from each
other by high partitions, which project some distance into the room,
so that the scholars may be turned into these separate compartments,
as into so many separate stalls. In no particular does chance seem
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
7
1
to have had so much sway as in regard to light. In many, so much
of the walls is occupied by windows, that there is but little difference
between the intensity and the changes of light within and without the
school-room; while in some others, there is but one small win-
dow on each of the three sides of the house and none on the fourth.
Without specifying further particulars, however, it seems clear that
some plan may be devised, combining the substantial advantages and
avoiding the principal defects of all.
In the Report, above referred to, it was observed, that " when it
is considered, that more than five-sixths of all the children in the
state spend a considerable portion of the most impressible period of
their lives in the school-house, the general condition of those build-
ings and their influences upon the young stand forth, at once, as
topics of prominence and magnitude. The construction of school-
houses connects itself closely with the love of study, with proficien-
cy, health, anatomical formation and length of life. These are great
interests and therefore suggest great duties. It is believed, that in
some important particulars, their structure can be improved, without
the slightest additional expense; and that, in other respects, a small
advance in cost would be returned a thousand fold in the improve-
ment of those babits, tastes and sentiments of our children, which
are so soon to be developed into public manners, institutions and
laws and to become unchangeable history."
The subject of school-house architecture will be best considered
under distinct heads.
VENTILATION AND WARMING.
Ventilation and warming are considered together, because they
may be easily made to co-operate with each other in the production
of health and comfort. It seems generally to have been forgotten,
that a room, designed to accommodate fifty, one hundred, and, in
some cases, two hundred persons, should be differently constructed
from one, intended for a common family of eight or ten only. In
no other particular is this difference so essential as in regard to ven-
tilation. There is no such immediate, indispensable necessary of
life, as fresh air. A man may live for days, endure great hardships,
8
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
and even perform great labors, without food, without drink, or with-
out sleep; but deprive him of air for only one minute, and all power
of thought is extinct; he becomes as incapable of any intellectual
operation as a dead man, and in a few minutes more, he is gone
beyond resuscitation. Nor is this all ;-but just in proportion as
the stimulus of air is withheld, the whole system loses vigor. As
the machinery in a water-mill slackens when the head of water is
drawn down ; as a locomotive loses speed if the fire be not seasona-
bly replenished ; just so do muscle, nerve, and faculty, faint and
expire, if a sufficiency of vital air be not supplied to the lungs. As
this Report is designed to produce actual results for the benefit of
our children ; and as it is said to be characteristic of our people,
that they cannot be roused to action, until they see the reasons for
it, nor restrained from action when they do, I shall proceed to state
the facts, whether popular or scientific, which bear upon this impor-
tant subject.
The common, or atmospheric air, consists mainly of two ingre-
dients, one only of which is endued by the Creator with the power
of sustaining animal life. The same part of the air supports life
and sustains combustion ; so that in wells or cellars, where a candle
will go out, a man will die. The vital ingredient, which is called
oxygen, constitutes only about twenty-one parts in a hundred of the
air. The other principal ingredient, called azote, will not sustain
life. This proportion is adapted, by omniscient wisdom, with per-
fect exactness, to the necessities of the world.
Were there any
material diminution of the oxygen, other things remaining the same,
every breathing thing would languish and waste and perish. Were
there much more of it, it would stimulate the system, accelerating
every bodily and mental operation, so that the most vigorous man
would wear out in a few weeks or days. This will be readily un-
derstood by all who have witnessed the effects of breathing exbilara-
ting gas, which is nothing but this oxygen or vital portion of the air,
sorted out and existing in a pure state. Besides, this oxygen is the
supporter of combustion, and, were its quantity greatly increased,
fire would hardly be extinguishable, even by water. But the vital
and the non-vital parts of the air are wisely mingled in the exact
proportions, best fitted for human utility and enjoyment ; and all
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
9
our duty is not to disturb these proportions. About four parts
of
the twenty-one of vital air are destroyed at every breath ; so that,
if one were to breathe the same air four or five times over, he would
substantially exhaust the life-giving principle in it, and his bodily
functions would convulse for a moment and then stop. As the
blood and the air meet each other in the lungs, not only is a part of
the vital air destroyed, but a poisonous ingredient is generated.
This poison constitutes about three parts in a hundred of the breath
thrown out from the lungs. Nor is it a weak, slow poison, but one
of fatal virulence and sudden action. If the poisonous parts be not
regularly removed, (and th y can be removed only by inhaling fresh
air,) the blood absorbs them, and carries them back into the system.
Just according to the quantity of poison, forced back into the blood,
follow the consequences of lassitude, faintness or death. The poison-
ous parts are called carbonic acid. They are heavier than the
common air, and as the lungs throw them out at the lips, their ten-
dency is to fall towards the ground or the floor of a room, and if
there were no currents of the air, they would do so. But the other
parts of the air, being warmed in the lungs and rarified, are lighter
than the common air, and the moment they pass from the lips, their
tendency is to rise upward towards the sky. Were these different
portions of the air as they come from the lungs of different colors; we
should, if in a perfectly still atmosphere, see the stream divided, part of
it falling and part ascending. A circulation of the air, however, pro-
duced, out-of-doors by differences of temperature, and in our apart-
ments by the motion of their occupants and by other causes, keeps
the poisonous parts of the air, to some extent, mingled with the
rest of it, and creates the necessity of occasionally changing the
whole. Though the different portions of the air have the same
color to the bodily eye, yet in the eye of reason their qualities are
diametrically opposite.
Although there is but the slightest interval between one act of
breathing and another, yet, in a natural state of things, before we can
draw a second breath, the air of the first is far beyond our reach, and
never returns, until it has gone the circuit of nature and been reno-
vated. Such are the silent and sublime operations, going on day and
night, without intermission, all round the globe, for all the myriads of
2
10
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
breathing creatures that inbabit it, without their notice or conscious-
ness. But, perhaps some will suppose, that, in this way, the vital
portion of the air, in process of time, will be wholly consumed or
used up; or that the poisonous portion, thrown off from the lungs, will
settle and accumulate, upon the earth's surface, and rise around us,
like a flood of water, so high as eventually to flow back into the
lungs and inflict death. All this may be done ; not however in the
course of nature, but only by suicidal or murderous contrivances.
In the Black Hole of Calcutta, in the year 1756, one hundred and
forty-six persons were confined to a room only eighteen feet square
for ten hours ; and although there was one aperture for the admission
of air and light, one hundred and twenty-three had perished at the
end of that time. Only twenty-three survived, and several of these
were immediately seized with the typhus fever. In the Dublin Hospital,
during the four years preceding 1785, out of seven thousand six
hundred and fifty children, two thousand nine hundred and forty-four
died, within a fortnight after their birth ; that is, thirty-eight out of
every hundred. The cause of this almost unexampled mortality was
suspected by Dr. Clarke, the physician, who caused fresh air to be
introduced by means of pipes, and during the three following years, the
deaths were only one hundred and sixty-five out of four thousand two
hundred and forty-three, or less than four in a hundred ; that is, a
diminution in the proportion of deaths of more than thirty-four per
cent. Hence it appears, that, through a deficiency of pure air, in
one hospital, during the space of four years, there perished more
than twenty-six hundred children. In Naples, Italy, there is a grot-
to, where carbonic acid issues from the earth and flows along the
bottom in a shallow stream. Dogs are kept by the guides who
conduct travellers to see this natural curiosity, and, for a small fee,
they thrust the noses of the dogs into the gas. The consequence is
that the dogs are immediately seized with convulsions, and, if not re-
leased, they die in five minutes. But let us not cry, Shame! too
soon on those who are guilty of this sordidness and cruelty. We
are repeating every day, though in rather a milder fashion, the same
experiment, except that we use children instead of dogs.
But why, in process of time, it may still be asked, is not the vital
principle of the air wholly exhausted, and the vallies and plains of
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
11
the earth, at least, filled with the fatal one? Again, Divine Wisdom
has met the exigency in a manner fittted to excite our admiration
and wonder. The vegetable world requires for its growth the very
substance which the animal world rejects as its death; and in its
turn, all vegetable growth yields a portion of oxygen for the support
of aniinal life. One flourishes upon that which is fatal to the other.
Thus the equilibrium is forever restored ; or rather it is never dis-
turbed. They exchange poison for aliment; death for life; and the
elements of a healthful existence flow round in a circle forever.
The deadly poison thrown from the lungs of the inhabitants of our
latitudes, in the depths of winter, is borne in the great circuit of the
atmosphere to the tropical regions and is there converted into vege-
table growth ; while the oxygen, exhaled in the processes of tropical
vegetation, mounts the same car of the winds, and in its appointed
time revisits the higher latitudes.* Why should we violently invade
this beautiful arrangement of Providence.
There is another fact, impossible to be overlooked in considering
this subject. Who can form any just conception of the quantity of
air, which has been created ? Science has demonstrated, that it is
poured out between forty and fifty miles deep all round the globe.
It was to prevent the necessity of our using it, second-hand, that it
was given to us by skyfulls. Then, again, it is more liquid than wa-
It rushes into every nook and crevice and fills every unoccu-
pied place upon the earth's surface. All the powers of art fail in
wholly excluding it from any given space. We cannot put our or-
gans of breathing, where some of it will not reach them.
can do is to corrupt it, so that none but fatal or noxious air shall
reach them. This we do. Now if the air were a product of human
pains-taking ; if laborers sweated or slaves groaned to prepare it ; if
it were transported by human toil from clime to clime, like articles
of export and import, between foreign countries, at a risk of proper-
ty and life ; if there were ever any dearth, or scarcity of it ; if its
whole mass could be monopolized, or were subject to accident or
conquest, then, economy might be commendable. But ours is a
parsimony of the inexhaustible. We are prodigals of health, of
which we have so little, and niggards of air of which we have so
ter.
All we
* See Appedix A. and B.
--
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SCHOOL-HOUSES.
7
much. In the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, there are eight
hundred feet cubic measure to each apartment, for one patient only.
In the Prison at Charlestown, one hundred and seventy-one and a
half cubic feet are allowed to each prisoner's cell. In addition to
this, free ingress and egress of the air is allowed, by means of aper-
tures and flues in the walls. In the Penitentiary, erected at Phila-
delphia a few years since, thirteen hundred cubic feet were allowed
to each prisoner, solitarily confined ; while in some of our school-
rooms, less than forty cubic feet is allowed to a scholar, without any
proper means of ventilation; and in one case, a school has been con-
stantly kept, for thirteen years, in a room which allows less than thir-
ty feet of air to the average number of scholars, now attending it;
and even this school-room, contracted as it is, is besieged by such
offensive effluvia, that the windows are scarcely opened even in sum-
mer.
I know of but three causes, which can have led to these opprobri-
our results. In populous and crowded places, the price of land may
have been thought to justify the use of small rooms for many scholars.
But this can never have been even a pecuniary argument of any
weight with a financial mind, for the ultimate public expense of the
sickness and poverty engendered, would overbalance, a thousand
fold, the requisite original outlay. Besides, even if there were limit
and constraint horizontally, there can have been none perpendicu-
larly.
A motive of some efficacy may have been felt in the increased
expense of erecting a house of adequate size. This is a tangible
motive. But how feeble is it, when compared with the health and
comfort of children, their love of study and their consequent profi-
ciency in it ? Should a case of necessity actually arise, where chil-
dren were obliged to undergo some privation, far better would it be
to stint them in their clothes, their food or their fuel, than in their air.
But in regard to school-houses which are built at the public expense,
such a necessity never can occur. Besides, these considerations
affect size only, not ventilation.
An economy of the air, which has once been warmed is the only
remaining motive for using foul air. But if the warm air is saved the
foul air must be breathed, for they are the same.
For several years
past, high ceilings have been strenuously recommended as a compro-
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
13
mise of the difficulty. But when the room is high, it is necessary,
in the first place, to warm a much greater quantity of air, than is re-
quired for breathing, and when it has all been once breathed, it be-
comes as necessary to remove it and supply its place with pure air,
as though the quantity had been small. Besides, pure air at a lower
temperature will warm the human system more, than impure air at a
higher. In our climate, a moderately low ceiling is preferable to a
high one, because with such, a much larger portion of the air which
we have been at the expense to heat, can be used.
But it is believed, that in the vast majority of cases, this habitual
use of foul air is not the result of calculation but of oversight. And
it is worthy of especial attention, that many of our school-rooms,
where the greatest privation of healthful air is now suffered, were con-
structed originally with a large open fireplace, which was of itself a suf-
ficient ventilator ; and that afterwards close stoves were introduced to
overcome the coldness of the rooms, without any reflection, that
what was gained in warmth and comfort, was lost in the purity of the
atmosphere, and consequently in bodily health and mental vigor.
In regard to this most immediate of all the necessaries of life, that
arrangement would be perfect, which should introduce the life-sus-
taining air, just as fast as it should be wanted for breathing; and,
when breathed, should carry it off, not to be breathed again, until it
should be renovated and purified in the laboratory of nature. If one
washes himself in running water, he will never dip up the same water
a second time. So should it be with the air we respire.
rangement, producing this effect is perfectly practicable and easy.
By examining a most valuable communication, placed at the end of
this report, from Dr. Woodward, the superintendent of the Lunatic
Hospital at Worcester, it will appear, that fifty persons will consume
the entire body of air in a room, thirty feet square and nine feet high,
in about forty minutes. If, however, the room be perfectly tight,
the air, once respired, will be partially mingled with the whole mass
of air in the room and will offer itself to be breathed again. What is
wanted, therefore, is a current of fresh air flowing into the room,
while a current of the respired air flows out of it; both to be equal
to the quantity required for the occupants. Under such circumstan-
ces, if there be but little motion in the room, the poisonous part of
An ar-
14
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
the air will settle towards the floor as soon as it is cast from the
lungs, while the other part of it, being raised almost to a blood heat
in the lungs will rise to the ceiling. In the ceiling, therefore, should
be an aperture for its escape. The carbonic acid will tend to flow
out under the door or when it is opened. If the ceiling be concave
or dome-shaped, only one aperture will be necessary ;-if horizontal
and the room be large, several may be required. The number will de-
pend upon the manner in which the room is heated. If the house be
of one story only, the apertures will open into the attic. On the upper
side of the aperture let a trap-door be hung, to he raised by a cord,
running over a pulley, and coming down into the room, or, (which is
more simple,) by wires, after the manner of house-bells. This door
should be prevented from opening to a greater angle than eighty de-
grees, so that when the cord is loosened it will fall by its own weight
and close the orifice. The door will be opened, niore or less, ac-
cording to the temperature of the weather and the degree of wind pre-
vailing without, so as always to carry off the impure air just as fast as
it is fouled by the lungs. Any person, by stepping into the open
air
and inhaling it for half a minute, can, on returning into the room, de-
termine the state of the air within it. If the apertures through the
ceiling open into the attic, the air can be let off, either through fan-
windows at the ends, or through sky-lights; or an opening can be
made into the chimney and a flue carried up to its top. In the last
case, the floor of the attic, immediately under the flue, should be
plastered, or covered with something incombustible, to make it per-
fectly secure against cinders, coming down through the flue. If the
building be two stories high, the apertures for ventilation in the low-
er story, instead of being in the upper ceiling of the room, should
be in the side walls, next the ceiling and so ascend, by fues, through
the walls of the second story until they open into the attic. Sliding
danipers can be used, in order to open or close these lower orifices,
so as to regulate the escape of air from the room. Where a school-
house two stories in height has been built in disregard of the laws of
health and life, the lower room may be ventilated by making aper-
tures in its upper ceiling, next to the walls of the room, and carry-
ing up flues through the second story in tight boxes, attached to the
walls and opening into the attic through similar apertures in the upper
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
15
!
ceiling of the second story. These boxes will appear, in the second
story, to be only casings of posts or pilasters, and will not materially
disfigure the room.
The best apparatus for expelling foul air from a room consists in
the proper means of introducing a supply of fresh warm air. Un-
doubtedly, the best mode of warming a room is to have a cellar
under it, and to place a furnace in the cellar. Some place of storing
wood seems indispensable for every school-house, and a cellar could
ordinarily be dug and stoned as cheaply as a wood-house could be
built. I suppose, also, that a school-house would be much less
exposed to take fire from a furnace well set, than from a common
fireplace or stove. But the great advantage of warming by a fur-
nace is, that all parts of the room are kept at the same temperature.
The air presses outward instead of inward, through every crack and
crevice in door or window. No scholars are injured by being forced
to sit in the vicinity of a stove or fireplace ; nor is any part of the
room encumbered by either. When the latter are used, many
scholars, who sit in exposed situations, will spend half an hour a
day and often more, in going to the fire to warm themselves; and,
in addition to those, whose comfort requires them to go, idlers, from
all sides of the house, will make it a rendezvous or halfway place,
for visiting. With an unequal diffusion of heat in a school warmed
by a stove, or fireplace, I believe it is always true, that diligent
scholars will stay in their seats and suffer, while the lazy will go to the
fire to drone. Some other advantages of setting a furnace in a cellar
to warm a school, are mentioned in the excellent communication of
Dr. Woodward, above referred to. Feet can be warrned or dried
at the orifices for admitting the beated air from the furnace as well
as at a stove. There may be two of these orifices, one for the boys
and one for the girls. The setting of a furnace requires some skill
and science. We often meet with a prejudice against furnaces,
which belongs not to the furnaces themselves, but 10 the ignorance
of those who set them. There seems to be no objection, except
it be that of appearance, against setting the furnace so high in the
cellar, as that its brick or soapstone top shall be on a level with the
floor of the room and constitute a part of it.
If a common stove must be used for warming the room, then let
16
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
it be enclosed in a case of sheet iron, rising from the floor on three
sides of the stove and bending over it ; not, however, so as to close
over its top, but leaving an opening in the case greater or less, ac-
cording to the size of the stove and of the room. The sides of
the case should be two or three inches from the sides of the stove.
The stove should stand on legs a few inches from the floor, and
fresh air should be introduced from out-of-doors and conducted
under the stove in a tube or trough, which, as it rises around the
stove, will be warmed and enter the room through the opening in the
case at the top. A slide in the tube or trough will regulate the
quantity of air to be admitted. The sensations, experienced in a
room into which the external air is directly introduced and warmed
in its passage, belong to a class entirely distinct from those engen-
dered by air warmed in the ordinary way. They will be grateful to
the pupils and will promote elasticity and vigor of mind. It would
be well to place the stove directly in the current of air caused by
opening the door.
The common expedient of letting down windows from the top,
so that the noxious air may escape and the vacuum be filled with the
pure, accomplishes the object in a very imperfect and, at the same
time, an objectionable manner. If there be any wind abroad, or,
if there be a great difference in temperature, between the external
air and the air of the room, the former rushes in with great violence
and mingles with the heated and corrupted air, so that unless several
room-fulls of air be admitted, a portion of that which has been ren-
dered unfit for use, will still remain, while some that has been
partially warmed will escape. But the greatest objection is that the
cold air drops like a shower bath upon the scholars' heads ;-a mode
which all agree in pronouncing unhealthful and sometimes dangerous.
Some school-rooms are heated by a common close stove, the
front part of which is placed in the wall, so that the door, where the
stove is filled, is in an entry, while the body of the stove is in the
school-room. It depends on other circumstances, whether this ar-
rangement is beneficial or injurious. Where the air which keeps up
the fire in the stove is taken from an entry, it passes through the
funnel and chimney and leaves the body of air in the room unchang-
ed. This is no objection, provided the air in the room is changed
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
17
otherwise. But if no other provision is made for changing the air
in the room, the draught of the stove becomes important for that
purpose. And although this may involve the evil of drawing in just
as much air through the crevices and openings as is carried off
through the stove, yet it is a less evil, than that of stagnant air in
the room. If, however, the room is warmed by introducing a cur-
rent of air from without, which is heated in its passage, then the
arrangement of feeding the stove in an entry is unobjectionable, and
may, often, be very commodious.
If the room be so warmed that the air presses from within, out-
wards, the doors should be hung so as to open inwards ; if, on the
other hand, the room be warmed by a common stove or fire place,
the external air will press inwards, and therefore the doors should
be hung so as to open outwards. Where the school-room has been
so faultily constructed, that a current of air blows directly upon a
row of scholars, every time the door is opened, it should be re-hung
or have a spring to prevent its being left open.
A thermometer should be kept in every school-room, and hung
on the coolest side of it. The proper temperature should be deter-
mined by unchangeable laws ; not by the variable feelings or caprice
of any individual. Without a thermometer, if the teacher be habit-
uated to live in the open air; if he be healthy, vigorous, and young;
if he walk a. mile or several miles to school ; and especially, if he
keep upon his feet during school hours, the scholars will be drilled
and scolded into a resignation to great suffering from cold. If, on
the other hand, the teacher lead a sedentary life ; if his health be
feeble ; if he step into the school-room from a neighboring door,
he will, perhaps unconsciously, create an artificial summer about
himself, and subject the children to a perilous transition in tempera-
ture, whenever they leave his tropical regions. In this way, a child's
lungs may get a wound in early life, which neither Cuba nor the
South of France can ever afterwards heal. A selfish or inconsider-
ate master will burn a whole room-full of children during the chill,
and freeze them during the fever of his own ague fits. They must
parch or congeal, as he shivers or glows.
It should be remembered, also, that even the thermometer ceases
to be a guide, except in pure air. When pure air enters the lungs
3
1
18
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
warm.
pure air.
it evolves heat. Its oxygen carries on the process, (supposed to be
combustion,) necessary for that purpose. This keeps our bodies
It is the reason why the blood remains regularly at a tem-
perature of ninety-eight degrees, though the air by which, we are
surrounded rises to that heat but few times in a year. The air con-
stantly supplies to the body, through the medium of the lungs, the
heat which it is constantly abstracting by contact with its surface.
But it is only through the agency of the oxygen or life-sustaining
portion of the air, that this heat is supplied. A thermometer, how-
ever, is insensible to this difference. It will indicate the same
degree of heat in azote, i. e., in that portion of the air which will
not sustain life, as in oxygen ; although a man, immersed in azote
at 70 or 80 degrees would die of cold, if he did not of suffocation.
I reiterate the first position, therefore, that even a thermometer
ceases to be a guide, except in
Ordinarily, we can undergo a change of a few degrees in tempera-
ture, without danger or serious inconvenience; but there is a limit,
beyond which the change becomes perilous and even fatal. Sup-
pose in a school, having a winter term of only four months, and
consisting of but fifty scholars, one quarter of an hour in a day, on
an average is lost for all purposes of study, in consequence of the
too great heat or cold of the room ; the aggregate loss, allowing six
hours to a day, will be two hundred days, or more than eight months.
And yet, in many of our schools, half the day, for all purposes of
improvement, is, by this cause alone, substantially lost.
Every keeper of a green-house regulates its heat by a thermome-
The northern blasts which come down upon the blossoms of
a farmer's orchard or garden, chill him as much as them. When
shall we apply the same measure of wisdom to the welfare of children
as to that of fruits and vegetables ! I am told by physicians, that
from 65 to 70 degrees is a proper temperature for a room. Some-
thing, however, must depend upon the habits of the children. In
cities, there is generally less exposure to cold, than in the country ;
and factory children would suffer from cold, when those einployed
in the out-door occupations of agriculture would be comfortably
warm.
ter.
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
19
!
SIZE.
The next thing in point of importance in regard to a school-house
is its dimensions. In almost every thing heretofore written on this
subject, the size of the school-room, in proportion to the number of
scholars, has been a very leading topic. And, certainly, if there be
no special means provided for changing the air in the room, the im-
portance of liberal dimensions cannot be exaggerated. But if, in-
stead of forcing foul air back again and again into the children's lungs,
we permit nature to perform her gratuitous and beneficent labor, by.
carrying it beyond their reach, as soon as it has once been respired,
then one main object of increasing the size of the room is already
accomplished. The great end of a supply of healthful air being se-
cured, the dimensions of the room are left to be determined by other
considerations. These are the convenient arrangement of the seats,
so that the teacher can survey the whole school with a single look;
so that each scholar can have an easy access to his own seat, with-
out disturbing or being disturbed by any other; and so as to remove
the temptations to communicate, to play or to aggress.
In regard to the size of the rooms, it may be observed, generally,
that in addition to the room requisite for seats and desks, as describ-
ed below, there should be an open space all round the walls, at
least two feet and a half in width, besides room for common reci-
tations, and for the teacher's desk. Seats may be attached to the
walls for the accommodation of visitors, or for the scholars, should it
ever be desirable for any purpose, to arrange them in a continuous
line. Moveable benches may be provided,---instead of seats fasten-
ed to the wall,--to be taken away, when not wanted for use, and so
to leave that space entirely unoccupied. Joseph Lancaster, in
making arrangements for great numbers of the children of the poor,
where cheapness was a main object, allows nine feet area, on the
floor, to each scholar. His rooms were fifteen or twenty feet high.
If only fifteen feet high, an area of nine feet would give one hundred
and thirty-five cubic feet of space to each scholar; and one hundred
and thirty-five cubic feet in a room ten feet high, would give to each
scholar an area four feet in length and almost three feet and a half in
20
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
width. Even at this rate a family of six persons would have a rooni
only about eight feet by ten.
DESKS, SEATS, &c.
It seems to be a very prevalent opinion, at the present day,
amongst all professional teachers, that seats, on a horizontal floor,
are preferable to those which rise on the sides or at the end of a
room, or both, in the form of an amphitheatre. And it is obviously
a great fault in the construction of a room, if, when a class is brought
upon the floor to recite, the teacher is obliged to turn his back upon
the school, when he looks at the class, or upon the class when he
looks at the school. A level floor also increases the space for air,
and as the room is warmed downwards, it makes the temperature
more equable. The seats with desks should be arranged in parallel
lines, lengthwise of the room, with aisles between, each seat to ac-
commodate one scholar only. Although it would be better, that
they should be nioveable, yet as this cannot, perhaps, ordinarily be
done for district schools, the front side of one seat may be the back
of the next in the row. Eighteen inches is, perhaps, a suitable width
for the aisles. Each desk should be two feet long, and not less than
one foot and six inches wide. A width of one foot and nine inches
would be better. In some houses, the seats connected with single
desks are one foot square, and are placed behind the middle of the
desks ; in others the seats are one foot wide and as long as the
desks. It may sometimes be desirable to place two scholars tem-
porarily on the same seat, as for the purpose of reading from the
same book. The former arrangement would make this impractica-
ble. The children will sit more easily and more upright, if the back
of the seats slope a little from them, at the shoulder blades; and
also, if the seats themselves incline a little--the front part being a little
the highest. The forward part of the desk should be level for about
three or four inches. The residue should have a slight inclination.
A slope of an inch and a half in a foot would, probably, be sufficient.
It should not be so great, as that books and slates would slide off.
For the deposit of books, and so forth, there may be a shelf under
the desk, or the desk may be a box, with a cover, hung upon hinges
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
21
for a lid. The first method supersedes the necessity of raising a
lid, by which books, pencils, and so forth, are sometimes thrown
upon the floor or upon the front neighbor. The shelf, however, is
far' less convenient, and the contents are liable to be perpetually
dropped out. The box and lid on the whole seem much preferable,
the sloping part of the cover to constitute the lid. For the security
of the desks, locks and keys are sometimes used. But the keys will
occasionally be lost, by accident; and sometimes, by bad scholars,
on purpose. Besides, what appalling images throng the mind, at the
reflection, that the earliest associations of children in regard to the
security of property amongst themselves, must be of locks and hiding
places, instead of honesty and justice! The board which makes
the front of one seat and the back of the next should rise, perhaps a
couple of inches above the level of the horizontal part of the desk,
to prevent things from sliding off forwards. Into this horizontal part
of the desk, the inkstands may be let; so loosely, however, as to
allow of their being taken out to be filled ; and so deep, that their
tops will be on a level with the desks. They may be covered, either
with a metallic lid, resembling a butt hinge, to rise and fall; or,
which is better, with a common slide, or with a flat circular piece of
pewter, having a stem projecting on one side, like the stem of a
watch, through which a nail or screw may be driven, not tightly, but
so that the cover may be made to slide over or off the orifice of the
inkstand, on the nail or screw, as a hinge.
Instead of the form of desks, above described, I have seen some,
constructed after the plan of Mr. Alcott's Prize Essay, in which the
box or case for the books, and so forth, is in the front part of the
desk ; that is, in the horizontal and not the sloping part of the desk
above described. They are made about eight inches in width, and
deep enough to receive the largest atlases, slates, and writing books,
when placed edgewise, for which purpose, an inch or two on one
side of the box is partitioned off. The lid is hung on hinges, as
above described, and when shut forms a part of the desk. *
Last year a gentleman in Hartford, Conn., offered a handsome
* Mr. Alcott's Prize Essay may be found at the end of the second volume of the Lectures,
published by the American Institute of Instruction in 1831, and is a very valuable paper.
22
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
premium for the best forın of a desk for schools. Several plans were
submitted to the judges, selected to award the premium. They de-
cided in favor of a desk, designed to accommodate two scholars,
upon one seat.
The desk was a tight box, without any lid, but
having an oblong opening, at each end, large enough to admit books,
slates, &c. In this way, whatever was put in or taken out of the
desk would be exposed to the view of the teacher and scholars.
The edge of the desk and of the seat should be in the same per-
pendicular line. This will not allow the scholar to stand up in front
of his seat; but if the seats and desks are single, he can stand on one
side of the seat. If the seats and desks are designed for two schpl-
ars, then the corner of each scholar's seat may be cut off, as in the
representation below.
z
a
3
Here each scholar can stand up in the corner d, or sit upon
the
seat b.
In regard to the height of the seats, it is common to give exact
measurements. But inflexible rules will never fit varying circum-
stances. Some school-rooms are for females ; others for boys only.
In factory villages, usually, a great proportion of the scholars are young;
while, in one county in the state, great numbers of the males attend-
ing school, during the winter term, are more than sixteen years of
age.
To follow unvarying rules, therefore, would aggrieve as
many as it would accommodate. But the principles to be observed
are few and capable of a definite exposition. A live child cannot be
expected to sit still, unless he has a support to his back, and a firm
resting place for his feet. As a scholar sits upright in his seat, the
knee joint forming a right angle and the feet being planted horizon-
tally on the floor, no pressure whatever should come upon the thigh
bone where it crosses the edge of the seat. If obliged to sit upon
too high a seat, a foot board or block should always be provided for
the feet to rest upon. Children sometimes go to school at an age
when many of their bones are alınost as limber as a green withe,
when alınost any one of the numerous joints in the body may be
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
23
loosened or distorted. They go almost as early, as when the Chi-
nese turn their children's feet into the shape of horses' hoofs ; or
when some tribes of Indians make their children's heads as square as
a joiner's box. And, at this period of life, when portions of the
bones are but little more than cartilage, and the muscles will stretch
like sheep's leather, the question is, whether the seats shall be con-
formed to the children or the children shall be deformed to the seats.
I wish to fortify myself on this subject, by making a few extracts
from a lecture on Physical Education, by that celebrated surgeon,
Dr. John C. Warren. 6. When children are sent to school, care
should be taken, that they are not confined too long. Children un-
der fourteen should not be kept in school more than six or seven
hours in a day; and this period should be shortened for females.
It is expedient, that it should be broken into many parts ; so as to
avoid a long confinement at one time. Young persons, however
well disposed, cannot support a restriction to one place and one pos-
ture. Nature resists such restrictions ; and if enforced, they are apt
to create disgust with the means and the object. Thus children
learn to hate studies, that might be rendered agreeable, and they take
an aversion to instructors, who would otherwise be interesting to
them.
“ The postures they assume, while seated at their studies, are not
indifferent. They should be frequently warned against the practice
of maintaining the head and neck long in a stooping position, and
the disposition to it should be lessened by giving a proper elevation
and slope to the desk, and the seat should have a support or back.
" The influence of an upright form and open breast has been suf-
ficiently explained ; and what may be done to acquire these qualities,
is shown by many remarkable facts, one of which I will mention.
For a great number of years, it has been the custom in France to
give to young ſeinales of the earliest age, the habit of holding back
the shoulders, and thus expanding the chest. From the observation
of anatomists, lately made, it appears that the clavicle or collar bone
is actually longer in females of the French nation, than in those of
the English. The French have succeeded in the developement of
a part, in a way that adds to health and beauty, and increases a char-
acteristic, that distinguishes the human being from the brute.
1
24
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
“While all of us are desirous of possessing the excellent qualities
of strength, hardiness and beauty, how defective are our own systems
of education in the means of acquiring them.
" In the course of my observations, I have been able to 'satisfy
myself, that about half the young females brought up as they are
at present, undergo some visible and obvious change of structure ;
that a considerable number are the subjects of great and permanent
deviations; and that not a few entirely lose their health from the
manner in which they are reared,
"I feel warranted in the assertion, that, of the well-educated fe-
males, within my sphere of experience, about one half are affected
with some degree of distortion of spine.
" The lateral distortion of the spine is almost wholly confined to
females, and is scarcely ever found existing in the other sex. The
difference results from a difference of habits during the school edu-
cation. The immediate cause of the lateral curve of the spine to
the right, is the elevation and action of the right arm in drawing and
writing.”
Much more might be quoted, apposite to this important subject.
It seems only necessary to add, that nothing so essentially tends to
aggravate these evils, as the want of a proper resting place for the
feet. Let any man try the experiment, and see how long he can sit
in an upright posture on a narrow bench or seat, without being able
to reach the floor with his feet, and consequently with the whole
weight of his feet, boots and the lower parts of the limbs, acting
with the power of a lever across the middle of the thigh bones.
Yet, to this position, hundreds of children in this state, are regularly
confined, month after month; and while condemned to this unnatural
posture, nature inflicts her punishments of insupportable uneasiness
and distress on every joint and muscle, if they do sit still, and the
teacher inflicts his punishments, if they do not. A gentleman, ex-
tensively known to the citizens of this state, for the benevolence of
his character and the candor of his statements, who, for the last
twenty years, has probably visited more of our common schools,
than any other person in the state, writes to me as follows : “I have
no hesitation in repeating what I have often publicly declared, that,
from the bad construction of our school-houses, there is more physi-
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
25
cal suffering endured by our children in them than by prisoners in our
jails and prisons."* The following is an extract of a letter, address-
ed to a “Common School Convention," held at Northampton in Feb-
ruary, 1837, by Dr. Joseph H. Flint, of that place : “For want of
attention to the subject,” (the construction of school-houses,) “I
have the means of knowing, that there has been annually loss of
life, destruction of health, and in numberless instances, anatomical
deformities, that render liſe hardly worth having. In the construc-
tion of school-houses, there are many considerations, involving the
comfort and health and life of the young," &c.
I am informed by surgeons and physicians, that a pupil, when
writing, should face the writing desk squarely. This position avoids
all unequal lateral pressure upon the spinal column, and of course
all unequal tension of the muscles on either side of it. It also in-
terferes least with the free play of the thoracic viscera, which is
a point of great importance. The edge of the desk should then be
an inch or two above the bend of the elbow, as the arm hangs
nearly by the side. Any slight want of exact adjustment can be
corrected, by extending the elbow farther from, or bringing it nearer
to the body.
The height of the seats and desks should of course be graduated,
to fit the different sizes of the scholars; the smallest scholars sitting
nearest the teacher's desk.
The arrangement of seats without desks, for small scholars, when
needed, is too obvious to require any explanation. Their proper
position will depend upon the other arrangements of the school-
room. Long benches, having separate chair-shaped seats, but with
a continuous back, are sometimes used.
The place for hanging hats, bonnets, and so forth, will also depend
upon the general construction of the house. It should be such as
to encourage habits of neatness and order.
The instructor's desk should be upon a platform, raised so high
as to give him a view of the persons of the pupils above their desks.
When the school is not large, it should be at the end of the room.
It should overlook the play-ground. Cases for the deposit and
preservation of the apparatus and library should be near the desk,
1
# The Rev. Gardiner B. Perry, of Bradford.
4
26
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
except where a separate apartment is provided. A teacher without
apparatus,-however numerous may be his books,-is like a me-
chanic with but half a set of tools.
The average number of scholars in the schools in Massachusetts
is about fifty. When the school is large, there should be a separa-
tion of the older from the younger children, and the latter, at least,
placed under the care of a female teacher. The opinion is almost
universal, in this state, that female teaching for young children is,
in every respect, superior to male. If the number of the older
scholars be large, there should be a separate recitation room, and a
door and an entry for the entrance and accommodation of each sex.
In very large schools, it may be thought expedient to have desks,
sufficiently long to accommodate six or more scholars, with chairs,
fastened to the floor for seats, and a space between the chairs and
the next tier of desks, for passing in and out. In such cases, the
desks may be placed longitudinally, and the teacher's platform for
himself and assistants extend the whole length of the room, in front
of them.
I now come to a subject, which I think of primary importance.
It is the almost universal practice of teachers to call their classes out
upon the floor for reading and recitation. If there were no other
reason, the change of position it gives them, is a sufficient one.
The seats in school-rooms, are almost without exception, so arrang-
ed, that these proceedings take place in full view of all the scholars;
and they are often so, that when the teacher turns his face towards
the class, he must turn his back upon the school. The idle snd dis-
orderly seize upon such occasions to violate the rules of the school.
This, they can generally do, with perfect impunity. They can
screen themselves from observation, by moving the head so that an
intermediate scholar shall intercept the teacher's view; or by hold-
ing up a book, slate or atlas, before themselves, and under such
shield, can whisper, eat or grimace. But the effect upon the atten-
tive is worse, than upon the idle ; and its tendency is to turn the
former into the latter. The eye is the quickest of all the senses,
and the minds of children always yield instant obedience to it, and
follow wherever it leads. Every one must have observed, that when
a class is reciting in presence of a school, if any thing unusual or in-
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
27
The pow-
congruous transpires, such as the falling of a book or slate, or the
ludicrous pronunciation of a word, the attention of every scholar is
broken off from his study. The blunder or stammering of a four
years' old child, learning letters, will strike every hand in the school
off its work. While the senses, and especially the eye, are bringing
vivid images to the mind, it is almost impossible for men and quite
so for children to deny them access. Much of what the world ad-
mires as talent is only a power of fixing attention upon an object,
and of looking steadily at it until the whole of it is seen.
er of concentration is one of the most valuable of intellectual attain-
ments, because it is the principal means of achieving any other ; and
the pupil, with but little positive knowledge, in whom this has become
a habit of mind has a far higher chance of success in any walk of life,
than one with a thousand times the knowledge, but without the habit.
This power is an acquired one as much as any other; and as sus-
ceptible as any other of improvement. But overtasking destroys it,
just as overloading the limbs crushes, instead of strengthening them.
Reference must be had, therefore, to the ordinary powers of chil-
dren's minds, or we shall have distraction instead of abstraction.
Much fixedness of thought ought not to be expected from the gid-
diness and volatility of children. In rooms of the common con-
struction, I do not believe that more than one-half of the time is
available for study. Not only therefore, ought the desire of strength-
ening this power to be inspired, but the arrangement of the room
and the tactics of the school should be made to contribute, uncon-
sciously to the children, to the same effect. Although the habits of
the mind are the main thing to be regarded in education, yet it can-
not be denied that one hour of concentrated attention on any sub-
ject is worth inore than a week's listless hovering and Aoating around
it. Hence, where there is no separate recitation-room, (which,
however, every large school ought to have,) the area for that
purpose
should be behind the scholars who remain in their seats. The
teacher can then take such a position at the end of the room, oppo-
site his desk, as to command at once, a view of the reciting class and
the rest of the school. He will then see, without being seen. The
scholars can interpose nothing between themselves and him. Ev-
28
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
ery scholar would be convinced, by strict vigilance on the part of the
teacher, during the first week of the school, that he had no power
of violating rules without detection. They would, therefore, yield
to the necessity of the case. The temptation would die with the op-
portunity to gratify it. The ear only of the scholars would be solic-
ited to notice the voices behind them, while the stronger attraction
of visible objects, the book, the slate, the map, would rivet eye and
mind upon the subjects of study. This slight interruption in the rear,
while the mind enjoyed such advantages for overcoming it, would
increase its power of continuous attention, and enable it, in after
life, to carry on processes of thought in the midst of conversation or
other disturbing occurrences. Still, it is thought, that the teacher's
desk should always face those of the scholars ; so that when a class
recites in the seats, when the whole school joins in any exercise, or
when they are to be addressed, each party should be able to see the
other face to face. The social principle will never otherwise, flow
freely.
LOCATION OF SCHOOL-HOUSES.
All philosophers agree that external objects affect temper and
character. If their influences are imperceptible, the results will be
so much the surer, because imperceptible influences are never resist-
ed. Because children cannot analyse and state in propositions the
feelings, which outward circumstances breathe into their susceptible
minds, it is no proof, that they are not undergoing insensible changes.
Every body recognizes the silent influences of external nature, if ex-
erted only for a few days, in the case of those religious sects, who
use the forest for a temple. Fatal contagions enter through skin or
lungs, without sending forward any herald. Subtle influences upon
such delicate issues as the nerves and brain are not seen in the pro-
cess, but only in the result. But experience and reason enable us
to foresee such consequences, and, foreseeing, to control them.
Adults alone can perform such a duty. If they neglect it, the chil-
dren must suffer.
It has been often objected to the people of our state that they in-
sist upon having the school-house in the geographical centre of the
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
29
a
district. And, other things being equal, surely it ought to be in the
centre. But the house is erected for the children and not for the
acres; and the inconvenience of going fifty or even eighty rods far-
ther is not to be compared with the benefit of spending a whole day
in a healthful, comfortable, pleasing spot, -one full of salutary influ-
ences upon the feelings and temper. Place a school-house in a bleak
and unsheltered situation, and the difficulty of attaining and preserv-
ing a proper degree of warmth is' much increased; put it upon a
sandy plain without shade or shelter from the sun, and the whole
school is subjected to the evils of heat and dust; plant it in low
marshy grounds, and it exposes to colds or to more permanent dis-
eases of the lungs, and impairs habits of cleanliness both in dress and
person ; make one side of it the boundary of a public road, and the
persons of the children are endangered by the travel, when out, and
their attention, when in, called off the lesson by every passer by ;
place it on a little remnant or delta of land, where roads encircle it
on all sides, without any place of seclusion from the public gaze and
the modesty of nature will be overlaid with habits of indecorum ; and
want of decency enforced upon boys and girls, will become physical and
moral turpitude in men and women. But build it, where some shel-
tering hill or wood mitigates the inclemency of winter ; where a
neighboring grove tempers the summer heat, furnishing cool and sha-
dy walks ; remove it a little from the public highway and from build-
ings where noisy and clattering trades are carried on; and, above all,
rescue it from sound or sight of all resorts for license and dissipation,
and a sensibility to beauty, a purity of mind, a sentiment of decency and
propriety will be developed and fostered, and the chances of elevated
feelings and correct conduct in after life will be increased manifold.
Habits of mental order and propriety are best cherished amidst ex-
ternal order and propriety. It is a most beautiful trait in the charac-
ter of children, that they take the keenest delight in the simplest
pleasures. Their desires do not tax commerce for its luxuries, nor
exhaust wealth for its embellishments. Such pleasures as are im-
parted by the cheerful light and the quickening air, by the way-side
flowers, the running stream, or the music of birds, are sufficient for
the more gentle and pensive ; and the impetuous and exuberant of
spirit only want a place to let off the redundant activity of their arıms
1
30
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
!
and legs. And how cheaply can these sources of gratification be
purchased. Sometimes a little of the spirit of compromise ; some-
times a little forgetfulness of strifes among the parents, engendered
on other subjects, would secure to the children the double boon of
utility and enjoyment. Yet how often are the unoffending children
ground between the collisions of their parents !
It seems not unconnected with this subject to inquire, whether,
in many places out of our cities, a plan may not be adopted to give
greater efficiency to the means, now devoted to common-school ed-
ucation. The population of many towns is so situated as conve-
niently to allow a gradation of the schools. For children under
the age of eight or ten years, about a mile seems a proper limit, be-
yond which they should not be required to travel to school. On
this supposition one house, as centrally situated as circumstances
will permit, would accommodate the population upon a territory of
four square miles, or, which is the same thing, two miles square.
But a child above that age can go two miles to school, or even rath-
er more, without serious inconvenience. There are many persons,
whose experience attests, that they never enjoyed better health or
made greater progress, than when they went two miles and a half or
three miles, daily, to school. Supposing, however, the most re-
mote scholars to live only at about the distance of two miles from the
school, one house will then accommodate all the older children upon
a territory of about sixteen square miles, or four miles square. Un-
der such an arrangement, while there were four schools in a territory
of four miles square, i. e. sixteen square miles, for the younger chil-
dren, there would be one central school for the older. Suppose
there is $600 to be divided amongst the inhabitants of this territory
of sixteen square miles, or $150 for each of the four districts. Sup-
pose farther, that the average wages for male teachers is $25, and for
female $12 50, per month. If, according to the present system,
four male teachers are employed for the winter term and ſour female
for the summer, each of the summer and winter schools may be kept
four months. The money would then be exhausted ; i. e. four
months summer, at 12 50 = $50, and four months winter, at $25 =
$100;—both $150. But according to the plan suggested, the
same money would pay for six months, summer school, instead of
!
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
31
four, in each of the four districts, and for a male teacher's school
eight months, at $35 a month, instead of four months at $25 a
month, and would then leave $20 in the treasury.
4 miles.
2 m.
2 m.
a
a. a. &. a.
District
school-houses for
female teachers.
А
Territory four miles
square, or sixteen
square miles.
A. Central school-
house for a malo
teacher.
&
a
By this plan the great superiority of female over male training for
children under eight, ten or twelve years of age would be secured ;
the larger scholars would be separated from the smaller, and thus the
great diversity of studies and of classes in the same school, which
now crumbles the teacher's time into dust, would be avoided ; the
female schools would be lengthened one half ; the length of the male
schools would be doubled, and for the increased compensation, a
teacher of fourfold qualifications could be employed. Undoubtedly,
in many towns, upon the Cape or among the mountains, the course
of the roads and the face of the territory would present insuperable
obstacles to the full reduction of this scheme to practice. But it is
as unquestionable, that in many others no physical impediments exist
to its immediate adoption ; especially, if we consider the legal power
of different towns to unite portions of their territory for the joint
inaintenance of schools. We have not yet brought the power of
united action to bear with half its force upon the end or the means of
education. I think it will yet be found more emphatically true in
this department of hunan'action, than in any other, that adding indi-
vidual means multiplies social power. If four districts cannot be
united, three may. If the central point of the territory happen to
be populous, a school-house may be built, consisting of two rooms;
one for the large, the other for the small scholars ; both upon the
32
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
66 In
same floor, or one above the other. It ought to be remarked, that
where there are two school-rooms under the same roof, care should
be taken to have the walls well deafened, so that neither should ever
be incommoded by any noises in the other.
The above enumeration of requisites in a school-house is consid-
ered absolutely essential and indispensable. Just so far as they are
disregarded, that nursery for the rearing of vigorous, intelligent and
upright men, must fail of its object. If the children's lungs are fed
only with noxious and corrupted air, which has once performed its
office, and is, therefore, incapable of performing it again, without
renovation, it may generate positive and incurable disease, and impair
the energies both of body and mind for the residue of life.
looking back upon the languor of fifty years of labor as a teacher,"
said the venerable Mr. Woodbridge, “reiterated with many a weary
day, I attribute a great proportion of it to mephitic air ; nor can I
doubt that it has compelled many worthy and promising teachers to
quit the employment. Neither can I doubt that it has been the great
cause of their subsequent sickly habits and untimely decease.". Peo-
ple, who shudder at a flesh wound and a trickle of blood, will confine
their children like convicts, and compel them, month after month, to
breathe quantities of poison. It would less impair the mental and
physical constitutions of our children, gradually to draw an ounce of
• blood from their veins, during the same length of time, than to send
them to breathe, for six hours in a day, the lifeless and poisoned air
of some of our school-rooms. Let any man, who votes for confin-
ing children in small rooms and keeping them on stagnant air, try the
experiment of breathing his own breath only four times over; and,
if medical aid be not at hand, the children will never be endangered
by his vote afterwards. Such darkening and benumbing of the mind
accustoms it, in its first beginnings, to look at objects, as it were,
through a haze, and to seize them with a feeble grasp, and robs it of
the pleasure of seeing things in a bright light. Children always feel
a keen delight in the consciousness of overcoming difficulties and of
fully comprehending any subject. This pleasure is the most legiti-
mate of all rewards, and one which nature always pays down on the
spot. But, instead of this, after filling their brains with bird-lime,
we taunt or chastise them, if they stick or get posed. If a child suf-
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
33
fer from heat or cold, from a constrained or unnatural position; if
his attention be perpetually broken off by causes beyond his control;
it tends to make his temper fretful and irritable, and compels him to
go back, again and again, to the beginning of his problem or exercise,
like a traveller obliged to return home and commence his journey
anew after having completed half its distance.
LIGHT. WINDOWS.
!
The manner in which a school-house is lighted is of no inconsid-
erable consequence. The additional cost of obeying philosophical
principles is, at most, trivial. We ought also to remember, that the
laws of nature are never violated with impunity. In modern times
the eye is much more used than formerly. Civilization has imposed
multiplied and difficult labors upon that organ. Perhaps the eye
gives fewer monitions of being overworked, than any other bodily
power. It seems more to exhaust its strength, and then fail irrecov-
erably. If so, it should be protected by the foresight of reason.
When provision is not made for admitting into a school-room a good
deal more light than is ordinarily wanted, there will frequently be too
little, and no remedy. Hence the windows should be such, as to
furnish sufficient light at all times, and means provided for excluding
any excess. Window-blinds and curtains, therefore, are essential.
The transitions of light in the open air are very great ; but it is to be
observed, that there is no out-of-door occupation, which severely
tasks the eye. But in a school-room, without blinds or curtains,
when the sun is allowed to shine directly upon a child's head, book
or desk, the transition is greater and more sudden than in the open
air; while, at the same time, the eye, being intensely engaged in
looking at minute objects, has its pupil widely distended, so that the
greatest quantity of light falls upon the optic nerve.
The following is extracted from a lecture, delivered by Dr.
Edward Reynolds of Boston, beſore the American Institute of
Instruction, in 1833. “How much talent lies dormant by the
morbidly sensitive eyesight, occasioned by inordinate and untimely
use of the eyes! This last mentioned evil is increasing to a fearful
amount among the young. Accurate inquiries have convinced me,
5
34
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
+
white paper.
that a large number of these individuals must go back to the school
room to find the source of their infirmities."
No persons, going with their eyes unprotected, ever cross the
Andes, without losing their sight. The glare of light from the snow
destroys it. Such facts admonish us to beware of exposing the
eyes of the young, either to very intense light or to great transitions,
while engaged in looking at small letters or in making fine marks on
paper. To say that the loss or impairing of sight is an evil
too contingent and uncertain to demand precaution, is neither philo-
sophical nor humane. Admit, that it is a contingent and uncertain
evil, in regard to any particular individual, so exposed ; as it is un-
certain, which of the children, in Egypt shall be blind men ; yet
that some one out of a given number, subjected to the danger, shall
be blind, is as certain as any law of nature. Laws applicable to
classes of men are just as infallible in their operation, as those ap-
plicable to individuals, though we cannot foresee upon which of the
individuals in the class, the law is to be verified. In a multitude of
cases, each tendency however slight, will have its quota of the re-
sults. Hence the necessity of meeting tendencies with prevention.*
In order that passing, out-door objects and events may not draw
off the attention of the scholars, it is usually recommended to insert
the windows so high, that such objects and events will be invisible
in the school-room. It cannot, however, be denied, that this gives
to the room a prison or cellar-like appearance. May not such in-
terruptions be better avoided by selecting a retired situation and by
arranging the 'seats, so that the scholars shall sit facing from the
road ? Nor can there be any necessity of having the windows very
high for this purpose. As scholars sit in their seats, the eyes of but
ſew will be more than three feet and a half from the floor. This
would allow of windows six feet deep in a room ten feet high. So,
too, it would be a perfect security against the evil, if the lower sash
or the lowest part of it were glazed with ground glass. The win-
dows should be made so that the upper sash can be lowered. This
may be very desirable in summer, independently of the considera-
tions, above urged, in regard to ventilation.
* See Appendix C.
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
35
YARDS OR PLAY-GROUNDS.
On this subject, I have never seen, nor am I able to prepare, any
thing so judicious, and apposite to the condition of the Districts in
Massachusetts, as the following paragraphs, taken from a Report,
published in 1833, “by order of the Directors of the Essex Coun-
ty Teachers' Association."
“ As the situation should be pleasant and healthful, so there should
be sufficient space around the building. With the number who or-
dinarily attend these institutions, not less than a quarter of an acre
should ever be thought of as a space for their accommodation, and
this should be enclosed from the public highway, so as to secure it
from cattle, that the children may have a safe and clean place for
exercise at recess and at other times. We believe it no uncommon
thing for a district to meet with difficulty in procuring a place for a
house ; for while most wish it to be near, they are unwilling to have
it stand on a notch, taken out of their own field. This reluctance
to accommodate the district may have been carried too far; the
actual may be less than the imagined evils. Yet it is not without
foundation, for in most instances, from the scanty and niggardly pro-
vision made by the district, the man knows that his own cultivated
fields must and will be made the place of the scholars' recreation.
We do not overstate, when we say, that more than half the incon-
veniences which persons thus experience in their property from the
contiguity of a school-house, arises from the insufficient provision
made for the children by the district. While all the district may
think that a neighbor is unaccommodating, because he is unwilling
to let them have just land enough to set their house upon, the real
truth is, that the smallness of the lot is the very thing which justifies
his reluctance; for whether he theorise or not on the subject, he
well understands that he will have to afford accommodations, which
the district are unwilling on their part to purchase. Every school-
house lot should be large enough for the rational exercise which the
children ought to have, and will take. It would be well to have it
large enough to contain some ornamental and fruit trees with flower
borders, which we know children may be taught to cultivate and
36
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
enjoy ; and by an attention to which their ideas of property, and
common rights, and obligations, would become more distinct. By
attention to what belonged to themselves, they would be kept from
many of those wanton injuries too often done to the possessions of
those near them.
“ In regard to space no one can be ignorant of the general prac-
tice. We believe it would be difficult in this county to find a score
of these buildings, where the lot is as large as the most inexperien-
ced on the subject would judge necessary.
“ In by far the greater number of instances, there is no more ground
than that which is occupied by the building ; while many of them
actually stand partly or wholly in the highway. The children, there-
fore, have no resort but to the public highway, or the private proper-
ty of their neighbors for amusement. Healthful and vigorous exer-
cise is restrained, the modesty of nature is often outraged, and not
unfrequently, a permanent and extensive injury done to the finer and
better feelings, which ought, at that age, to be cultivated and con-
firmed by the most careful attention, not only as a great security
from sin, but as a most lovely ornament through life. Besides this,
there being no place for pleasant exercise for the boys out of doors,
the school-room, during the intermission at noon, becomes the place
of noise and tumult, where not from any real intention, but in the for-
getfulness of general excitement, gentlemanly and lady-like feelings
are turned into ridicule, and an attempt to behave in an orderly and
becoming manner, subjects the individual to no small degree of per-
secution. We have often witnessed such instances, and known those
who refused to engage in these rude exercises, forced out of the
room and kept out during the greater part of an intermission, because
their example cast a damp upon a course of rude and boisterous
conduct, in which they could not take a part. Whatever others may
think, it is our belief that this noise and tumult is in a great measure
the natural overflowing of youthful buoyancy, which, were it allow-
ed to spend itself in out-door amusements, would hardly ever betray
itself improperly in the house."
There is another topic of primary importance, the merits of which
are so well developed in a portion of the “Report” above referred
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
37
to, that I shall need no apology for transferring it to these pages. It
regards,
THE DUTY OF INSTRUCTORS IN RELATION TO
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
“ Though Instructors may, ordinarily, have no direct agency in
erecting and repairing the buildings where they are employed to keep
school, yet by a little carefulness, ingenuity and enterprise, they can
do much to avoid some of the evils connected with them. When
about to open a school they can look at the house, as a mechanic at
his shop, and adapt their system to the building, and not carry into a
house ill adapted to its developement, a system of operations, how-
ever speculatively just it may appear in their own minds. The build-
ings are already constructed, and of materials not over plastic, and
often as incapable of accommodating a system got up in some other
place, as the house of the Vicar of Wakefield was, for the family
painting. Instructors should make the most of what is comfortable
and convenient, and remedy as far as possible what is bad. If the
pupils are uncomfortably seated, they can allow them occasionally to
change their seats, or alter their position, which, though attended
with some inconvenience, cannot be compared with the evils grow-
ing out of pain and restlessness, and the effects which are likely to
be produced upon the health, the disposition, morals, and progress
in learning, from a long confinement in an uneasy position. Instruc-
tors can and ouglat to use their influence and authority to preserve
the buildings from injuries, such as cutting the tables, loosening and
splitting the seats, breaking the doors and windows, by which most
houses of this class are shamefully mutilated, and their inconvenien-
ces, great enough at first, are increased. The extent to which inju-
ries of this kind are done, and the inconveniences arising from it, in
respect of writing books and clothes, are great beyond what is ordi-
narily thought ; and as it is possible in a considerable degree to pre-
vent them, they should not be tolerated. So far as the scholars are
concerned, it may arise from a mixture of causes ;-thoughtlessness,
idleness, a restless disposition or real intent to do injury. But what-
ever may be the cause it argues an imperfection in the moral princi-
38
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
ple which, were it in wholesome exercise, would teach them that it
is equally iniquitous to damage public as private property. The
practice we refer to, is actual injustice, a real trespass, for which in
almost all other cases, the offender would be called to an account.
And we must conſess that it is matter of just surprise, that more ef-
forts have not been made to prevent it. A high responsibility rela-
tive to this concern, rests on the instructors. The power of pre-
venting this, lies principally with them. It is obvious then to remark,
if they have much reason to complain for want of better accommo-
dations, they have some reason to reform, and in measuring out the
blame which justly rests soinewhere, to take a little portion to them-
selves. We are persuaded that School-Houses will be more read-
ily built and repaired, when instructors shall use more exertions to
save them from the folly and indiscretion of children. The injuries
complained of, we are persuaded, if not wholly, yet to a great es-
tent, can be prevented ; and it is high time that parents and teachers,
should bring together their fixed and operative determination, to suf-
ſer it no longer. Separate from the inconveniences which scholars
themselves experience from it, a licentious and irresponsible feeling
in regard to public property, is encouraged. If the well known loose
sense of obligation in respect to public interests and the wanton inju-
ries which are so frequently done to institutions of a public nature of
every description, so pre-eminently common throughout this country
does not spring up in the habits referred to, it is certainly most pow-
erfully fostered by it; and there is great reason to apprehend, that
a principle so loose in respect to public property, must extend itself
by easy transitions to private. In every view, the practice is wrong,
and the effect corrupting, and it is high time, that the attention of
the community was directed to it, the obligations of men on this
subject, more fully taught, and when necessary, enforced in all our
institutions of learning, from the Infant School to the Professional
Hall, not excepting our Theological Seminaries, where, if in any
place, we should expect regard would be paid to public rights, and
the bestowments of private munificence, and we could wish the evil
complained of, stopped here, but truth constrains us to say, that the
tables and seats of the Bench and Bar in our court houses, the Pews
and even the Pulpits in our places of religious worship, bear evident
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
39
marks, that neither the "ermine nor the lawn,' are sufficient to re-
strain this most shameful, deforming, and mischievous practice.
“ Teachers should take the management of the fire entirely under
their own control, for though their own feelings may not be the
thermometer of the room, yet if they are at all qualified to teach,
they must possess more discretion on this subject, than those under
them. They should see that the room is in a comfortable condition
by the time the exercises commence. Many a half day is nearly
wasted, and sometimes, from the disorder consequent upon the state
of things, worse than lost, because, when the children collect, the
room is so cold, that they cannot study, nor can they be still. Noth-
ing short of the master's being in the house a half hour before the
school commences can, ordinarily, secure the object referred to. It
may be objected, that instructors are not employed to build fires.
We do not ask them to do it, but we ask them to see that fires are
seasonably built. And we must think those who can define so nice-
ly the limits of their obligations, as to excuse themselves from this
care, have not the spirit of high-minded and enterprising teachers,
and that however worthy they may be, and however well qualified
for other employments, they should never offer themselves for that
of school keeping.
"Instructors should see, also, that the school-room be in all its
parts, kept in a clean and comfortable condition. Cleanliness is not
ordinarily ranked so high, nor is the contrary habit ranked so low in
the scale of moral worth and sinful defilement as they should be, nor
do they, as we fear, enter so fully into the account when men are
estimating their own moral state, or when others are estimating it for
them, as they ought. We will not say, as a very able and careful
observer of men once said, that he did not believe any person could
be a true christian, who was not becomingly neat in his person and
in his business ; yet we are free to say that every additional year's
intercourse with the world in moral and religious concerns, deepens
the conviction, that cleanliness is inseparable from any considerable
advancement in a religious life, and that where its requirements are
disregarded, there is much reason to apprehend that other and im-
portant defects of a moral nature do, most probably, exist. Cleanli-
ness in one's person, and the various occupations, is intimately con-
40
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
nected with manly and upright conduct, chaste and pure thoughts,
and sensible comfort in any situation ; and as a service exacted, or a
habit established, would go far to secure good order and agreeable
conduct in any school. We are persuaded that one of the most
powerful helps towards good government, and consequent orderly
conduct among the pupils, is overlooked through inattention or igno-
rance, where this principle is not called in ; and where an exertion
to establish a principle and habit of neatness has not been put forth,
one of the strong bonds to a future worthy moral conduct, is lost,
and a most important and legitimate object of instruction and educa-
tion neglected. Great exertions should be used to cultivate among
the pupils, a taste for cleanliness, decency and elegance in all things,
and their particular responsibility in respect to the proper state of the
house, and all its outward connections. This is their home, for the
good and decent state of which, their character is at stake and their
comfort involved. They should firmly and perseveringly resolve,
that the school-room should be kept clean, not simply swept, but
often washed, and every day dusted. Without this attention it is
inpossible their own persons, their clothes or books can be preserv-
ed in a decent and comfortable state. The room they should con-
sider as their parlor, and those that occupy it, company to one
another. The room must, therefore, always be in a visiting condi-
tion. And what should prevent this ? Cannot a number of young
people, all of whom, it must be presumed, are trained to order and
neatness at home, bring the principles of order and neatness into an
apartment, where they are to spend so much time together, and where
any one who knows much of the business of common families, must
know there is less excuse for any disorder or dirt, than there is in
most of our houses? We know it is practicable to have a school-
room kept in a comfortable condition, and that youth instructed and
encouraged to do this, and having their attention sufficiently directed
to it, will soon become interested in the subject, and manifest a
commendable disposition to have things as they ought to be, and a
willingness to make all the personal efforts which are required, to
accomplish it. And we are persuaded, that, when this is attempted,
it will be found, perhaps, to the surprise of many, that from the
less injury done to the clothes of scholars and to the books, as well
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
41
as from the better conduct which will invariably ensue, that many of
the evils, connected with our common schools, would be removed.
“It is a fact, susceptible of as perfect demonstration as any moral
proposition, that filth and dirt, if they be in part the effect, are at the
same time, among the most efficient causes, of corrupt morals and
debased conduct. Gisborne, in one of his works, has a remark of
this kind, (we do not pretend to quote his words,) that in a part of
London, more young families, who, at setting out in life, promise
well, are made corrupt and led into wretched and destructive habits,
from the unhappy location of houses, which renders all attempts to
keep them in a pure and comfortable condition ineffectual, than from
any other single cause. Ineffectual efforts to keep things neat, led
to neglect, neglect to filthy habits, and filthy habits to low and de-
graded vice. If such be the operation of a want of neatness in fami-
lies, and we apprehend the justness of the remark will find support
in instances which must have fallen within the knowledge of every
attentive observer, are there not reasons to fear, that the same effects
will follow the same course in school ? There can be no doubt that
in many instances, a sense of propriety is destroyed, in more, greatly
weakened by the state of things in and about the houses of education.
A disregard to this subject, too common among scholars, often set-
tles down into a confirmed habit, and gradually spreads itself over the
whole surface of action, and through life, the individual becomes less
interesting in his appearance, less agreeable in his manners, less, hon-
orable in his conduct, and less moral and upright in his principles.
“ Instructors should also guard against the bad influence upon the
dispositions and manners of scholars, which the inconveniences they
experience are apt to produce. The pain and uneasiness which a
child experiences from an uncomfortable situation in school, he will
very likely associate with his books and studies, or with the instruc-
tor and regulations of school ; he may connect it with those who sit
near him, and who may be just as uneasy as himself, and be ready to
hate the whole and quarrel with all, because he feels pain and cannot
or does not rightly understand the occasion of it. The local situation
of children in school has a most obvious bearing upon the conduct
Place them a little out of the observation of the
instructor, and they will play ; put them where they are crowded,
6
and temper.
42
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
or sit with inconvenience, and they will quarrel. It has often been
a subject of interest to me, says one of the committee, when visiting
schools, to observe the operations of local circumstances upon the
mind and conduct of children, and the more I have observed, the
more importance am I constrained to attach to these things. In one
house where I have many times called, I do not recollect ever pas-
sing a half hour, without seeing contention among those placed in
a particular part of the room, and play in another. I distinctly rec-
ollect the same thing in the seminary where I pursued my prepara-
tory studies. It was as obvious in the lecture room in college. In
the seminary which I had the care of for some years, it was so ap-
parent that I often changed the situation of those who were unfavor-
ably placed, to prevent the feelings and conduct likely to be produced
from settling down into confirmed habits. For pernianent bad ef-
ſects may and have, in fact, grown out of these circumstances.
Quarrels, also, which have sprung up between children, and which had
no other legitimate cause, than their being placed together in school,
on uncomfortable seats, have led to a state of unkind feelings, and un-
friendly conduct through life. The influence has sometimes extend-
ed beyond the individuals ; families and neighborhoods have been
drawn into the contention ; and, in not a few instances, whole dis-
tricts thrown into disorder, only because at first some little twig of
humanity had become restless and quarrelsome, in consequence of
his uneasy position in school.
“But if the effect be confined to the individual, yet it may be
sufficiently unhappy. Suppose from one of the causes above named,
the child acquires a habit of loose and foolish playfulness, or of rest-
less discontent-suppose he acquire a disrelish for schools, his
books, or unkind feelings towards his instructor, or his fellows—will
there not be much personal loss, and is there no danger of ſuture
consequences is there no danger that these feelings will go into fu-
ture life, and the individual prove less comfortable to himself, and
less comfortable to others? Youth is the season when the character
is formed, and direction given to the feelings and the conduct. It is
a matter of no small interest, to the man himself or those with whom
he is to act in future life, that these be of a gentle and accommoda-
ting character.
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
43
"Since, therefore, from the construction of many of our school-
houses, it is not possible for the scholars to be altogether free from
suffering, it is a subject well worthy the special attention of instruc-
tors, carefully to guard against the consequences which it is like to
produce upon their temper and conduct. This may be done in
some degree, by allowing the children occasionally to change their
situation, to rise and stand up a few minutes ; or at convenient sea-
sons, giving them a short additional recess. To remove in some
degree, the gloom and deformities of the house, and at the same time
to draw off the attention from their bodily pains, scholars should be
allowed to ornament it with greens and flowers, and other things of
an innocent nature attracting to the minds of youth. Agreeable ob-
jects originate agreeable feelings, and pleasant feelings lead to good
conduct. We would also recommend to instructors to encourage
the children in places where there is the least prospect of security,
to cultivate flower borders upon the school-house grounds; and cer-
tainly in boxes set in the house. Should it be objected, that their
attention would in this way be withdrawn from their books, we must
reply, that we doubt the fact, and would in turn ask whether the
feelings, the taste and the understanding would not be most essen-
tially improved by attention to the works of nature, and efforts to
bring to the highest perfection, those things which a wise Provi-
dence, who knows by what means the character of man is to be
formed, has made beautiful to the eye. Our own feelings have
often been hurt and our views of expediency entirely crossed, when
we have seen, as we have on many occasions, a handsome branch, or
beautiful flower, or well arranged nosegay, torn in a censorious and
ruthless manner from the hand of a child, or the place where his love
for ornament and beauty had placed it. We would encourage the
children to make the room of confinement as pleasant to them, as
they can consistently with other duties ; and if at any time it be ob-
served, that these things are gaining an undue influence over them,
to check it as any other practice not evil in itself, but only in excess,
should be corrected. It should be done in such a manner, that the
child should be left free to enjoy, as far as it is safe to enjoy, and
ſeel too that he does it with the full approbation and good will of his
instructor.
44
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
1
It is a
- There is one subject more to which we must be permitted to
reſer ; one in which the morals of the young are intimately con-
nected, one in which parents, instructors and scholars should unite
their efforts to produce a reform. There should be nothing in or about
the school-houses, calculated to defile the mind, corrupt the heart,
or excite unholy and forbidden appetites ; yet considering the vari-
ous character of those brought together in our public schools, and
considering also how inventive are corrupt minds, in exhibiting open-
ly the defilement which reigns within, we do not know but we must
expect that school-houses, as well as other public buildings, and even
fences will continue to bear occasional marks both of lust and pro-
faneness. But we must confess, that the general apathy which ap-
parently exists on this subject, does appear strange to us.
humbling fact, that in many of these houses, there are highly inde-
cent, profane and libidinous marks, images and expressions, some of
which are spread out in broad characters on the walls, where they
unavoidably meet the eyes of all wlio come into the house, or being
on the outside, salute the traveller as he passes by, wounding the
delicate and annoying the moral sensibilities of the heart. While
there is still a much greater number, in sınaller character, upon the
tables and seats of the students, and even, in some instances, of the
instructors, constantly before the eyes of those who happen to occu-
py them. How contaminating these must be, no one can be entire-
ly ivsensible. And yet how unalarmed, or if not entirely unalarmed,
how little is the mind of the community directed to the subject, and how
little effort put forth to stay this fountain of corruption. Such things
ought not to be ; they can, to a considerable extent, be prevented.
The community are not, therefore, altogether clear in this matter.
When we regard the deleterious effect which the want of accom-
inodation and other imperfections in and about these buildings, must
have upon the growth, health, and perfectness of the bodily system,
upon the mental and moral powers, upon the tender and delicate feel-
ings of the heart, we must suppose there is -as pressing a call for the
direct interference of the wise and benevolent, to produce an im-
provement, as there is for the efforts of the Prison Discipline Soci-
ety, or for many of the benevolent exertions of the day. And we
do most solemnly and affectionately call upon all, according to their
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
45
situation in life, to direct their attention to the subject; for the bod-
ies, the minds, the hearts of the young and rising generation require
this. It is a service due to the present and future generation. A
service due to their bodies and souls."
I will now bring this long statement to a close by the enumeration
of a few further particulars, which could not well be arranged under
any of the preceding heads; and shall omit such things only as no
civilized people can ever forget.
Where the expense can be afforded, every school-house should
be provided with a bell. If not the only mode, it is probably the
best one for ensuring punctuality ; and the importance of punctuali-
ty can hardly be overstated, either as it regards the progress of the
school collectively, or the habits of the individual pupils. If morals
were to be divided into the greater and the less, the virtue of punc-
tuality should be set down in the first class. Probably there are few
districts, which would not obtain a full equivalent, every year, for the
price of a bell, in the improved habits and increased progress of the
children.
It is also very desirable to have a time-piece placed in some part
of the school-room, where it can be seen by all the scholars. It is
both encouragement and relief to them. It has an effect upon the
pupils, just like that of mile-stones upon travellers. Men and chil-
dren have a wonderful power of adapting themselves to circumstan-
ces, but with all their flexibility, neither child nor man can ever
adapt himself to a state of suspense or uncertainty. All the large
schools in the city of Lowell are provided with a clock, which
strikes after stated intervals. This is a signal for classes to take
their places for recitation, and for reciting classes to return to their
seats.
Many school-houses in the country, are situated a hundred rods
or more from any dwelling-house. In all cases it is desirable, but in
such cases it seems almost indispensable, to have a pump or well,
where water for drink and so forth can be obtained. In the summer
children usually require drink once in half a day. A hundred rods
is too far for them to run in a brief intermission, or for water con-
veniently to be carried ;—to say nothing of the inconvenience to a
46
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
:
neighbor of having his premises invaded year after year and, perhaps,
his gardens and fruit trees thereby subjected to petty depredations.
No children or teacher ought ever to be blamed for having a mud-
plastered floor, if mats and scrapers are not placed at the doors of
the house.
If there be not a cellar for wood when that species of fuel is used,
a shed in which to house it is indispensable.
In the year 1831, the censors of the American Institute of In-
struction submitted to that body a “Plan of a Village School-house.'
As the object of this report is, not so much to present a model for
universal adoption, as to explain the great principles which should be
observed, whatever model may be selected ; I have thought it might
be acceptable to accompany this report with the “ Plan” which was
submitted by the censors as above stated, together with all the ma-
terial parts of their explanation of it. They are therefore appended.
[See the 2d volume of the Lectures of the American Institute of In-
struction, p. 285, et. seq.]
It will be perceived, that the “ Plan” of the censors exhibits a
doric portico in front of the house. Such an ornament would be
highly creditable to the district, which should supply it. It would
be a visible and enduring manifestation of the interest they felt in the
education of their children. And what citizen of Massachusetts would
not feel an ingenuous and honorable pride, if, in whatever direction he
should have occasion to travel through the state, he could go upon
no highway nor towards any point of the compass, without seeing,
after every interval of three or four miles, a beautiful temple, planned
according to some tasteful model in architecture, dedicated to the
noble purpose of improving the rising generation, and bearing evi-
dence, in all its outward aspects and circumstances, of fulfilling the
sacred object of its erection ? What external appearance could im-
press strangers from other states or countries, as they passed through
our borders, with such high and demonstrative proofs, that they were
in the midst of a people, who, by forecasting the truest welfare of
their children, meant nobly to seek for honor in the character of their
posterity, rather than meanly to be satisfied with that of their ances-
And how different would be the feelings of all the children
towards the schools, and through the schools, towards all other means
tors ?
SCHOOL-HOUSES.
47
of elevation and improvement, if, from their earliest days of observa-
tion, they were accustomed always to look at the school-house and
to hear it spoken of as among the most attractive objects in the neigh-
borhood !
In the preceding remarks, I have suggested defects in the con-
struction of our school-houses only for the purpose of more specifi-
cally pointing out improvements. I would not be understood as de-
tracting from, but as attesting to, their usefulness, as they are. Al-
though often injudiciously located, unsightly without, and uncomfort-
able within, yet, more than anything else, they tend to convert the
hope of the philanthropist into faith, and they fill him with a gratifica-
tion a thousand times nobler and more rational than the sight of all
the palaces in the Old World.
HORACE MANN,
Secretary of the Board of Education.
Boston, March 27, 1838.
.
PLANS OF SCHOOL-HOUSES.
7
PLATE I.
FIGURE 1.
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FIGURE II.
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EXPLANATION OF PLATE I.
FIGURE I. represents the general plan of a School-House, as recommended in the -
preceding pages.
A Teacher's Desk.
BB Teacher's Platform, from 1 to 2 feet in height.
C Step for ascending the Platform.
LL Cases for Books, Apparatus, Cabinet, &c.
H Pupils' single Desks, 2 feet by 18 inches.
M Pupils' Seats, 1 foot by 20 inches.
1 Aisles, 1 foot 6 inches in widih.
D Place for Stove, if one be used.
E Room for Recitation, for retiring in case of sudden indisposition, for inter-
views with parents, when necessary, &c. It may, also, be used for
the Library, &c.
F, F, F, F, F Doors into the boys' and girls' entries.--from the entries into the school-
room, and from the school-room into the recitation room,
G, G, G, G Windows. The windows on the sides are not lettered.
The seats for small scholars, without desks, if needed, to be moveable, and placed as the
general arrangements of the school shall render convenient.
Where there is but one teacher, the space between the desks and the entries to be used
for recitation. Here, also, is the place for black boards, whether moveable or attached to
the wall. This space should be 8, 10, or 12, feet wide, according to the size of the school.
The height of the room should never be less than 10 or 12 feet.
FIGURE II represents an end view of the pupils' Desks and Seats.
J Pupils' Seats.
K Shape of the board or plank which forms the side and support of the desks,
see page 20, &c.
A light green is perhaps the best color for the scholars' desks and seats, as it is more
grateful than any other to the eye. For the outside of the house, white is the color most
universally pleasing.
1
[Note to pp. 30 and 31. It is earnestly hoped that no new School-house will be erected
in the country, without a careful inquiry, whether a division and gradation of the schools, as
suggested in these pages, he not practicable.
If a union of different Districts for this purpose, be really impossible, then, if the school
be large, or likely soon to become so, there should be a separate apartment for the smaller
scholars. This may be effected either by having a basement story under the whole or a
part of the principal school-room, or by extending the Plan (as represented in Plate 1,)
and having the doors and entries in the centre, with a room on each side, instead of having
them, as in the Plan, at the end of the building.]
PLATE II.
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PLAN OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL-HOUSE.
[This is the Plan submitted to the American Institute of Instruction, by their Board of Censors,
in 1831, and is the same referred to in the Report, p. 46.]
“Plate II is the ground plan of a village school-house, for both sexes, containing eighty
separate seats and desks. Additional seals for small children, who may not require desks,
can be introduced at pleasure, and the teacher can arrange them in such situations as may
be most convenient. For this purpose a sufficient number of light, moveable forms should
be furnished.
“ The whole edifice, exclusive of the portico in front,—which may be omitted, if a cheap,
rather than a tasteful building is required, --is 58 feet long, and 35 feet wide. The dimen-
sions of the school-room allow 21 feet of floor to each of eighty scholars, the passages,
teacher's platform, &c. being included. It is believed that this allowance is not too liberal,
is not more than is required for the comfort, health and improvement of the scholars.*
“ The plan here proposed may be enlarged or diminished, for a greater or less number of
scholars, according to the following scale :-For ten scholars, add 1 feet to the length; for
sixteen scholars, add 4. feet to the width; for twenty-eight scholars, add 4 feet to both length
and width. For a less number of scholars, the length or breadth, or both, may be diminish-
ed at the same rate.
“ The school-room, represented in the plan annexed, is 48 feet long, and 35 feet wide,
within the walls.
“ The floor of the room should be level, and not an inclined plane. Nothing is gained by the
cominon mode of finishing school rooms with inclined floors; and much is lost in syinmetry,
convenience and comfort. A faithful and active teacher will be about among his scholars,
and not confine himself 10 a fixed seat, however favorably situated for overlooking them.
“Whether there be a stove in the school-room or not, there ought to be an open
fire-
place, where children may warm and dry their feet. The fire-place slould be furnished with
a hol-air chamber, to facililate the ventilation of the room.
" The lids or tops of the scholars's desks are usually made to slope too much. They
should be nearly, if not quite horizontal,-
,-an inch to a foot being a sufficient slope.
“ Each scholar should have a separate seat, which should be confined to the floor. The
seat should be about 13 inches square.
" The front rows of seats and desks, or those nearest the master's platform, being design-
ed for the smaller children, should be lower than those near the entries."
"* It may not be amiss to state, that two of the Censors teach large private schools in Boston; and
in their respective schools, they allow, for each of their scholars, about 22 square feet of floor, ex-
clusive of entries, dressing-rooms, recitation-rooms, &c. One of the school-rooms is 16 and the
other 18 feet high,—the former giving about 350, and the latter about 400, cubit feet of space, to
each scholar."
EXPLANATION OF PLATE II.
P Doric Portico in front of the School-house.d, d, d, d, d Doors.-BE Boys' En-
try, 12 by 10 feet.—G E Girls' Entry, 12 by 10 feet.-WR Wood-Room, 11 by 8 feet.-
g Fire-place.-e Closet.--f Sink, to be concealed by a falling door balanced with
weights.-D, D, D, D Passage around the room, 6 feet wide.-1,2,3,4,5,6 Stations
marked on the floor, to be used by classes, when reciting to monitors.-ABA The
Teacher's Platform, extending across the room, 6 feet wide and 9 inches high.-B A part
of the Platform to be removed in the winter, if necessary, to make room for a stove.-
3 Cabinet for apparatus, specimens, &c.—y Book-case.-H Master's Desk.--I Assis-
tant or Monitor's Desk.–F Centre Passage; in the plan drawn 3 feet wide, but 4 feet
would be better.—b Scholars' Desks, 18 inches wide and 2 feet long-C Scholars' Seats.-
a: Passages between the seats and the next row of desks, 13 inches wide. A desk, seat,
and passage occupy 4 feet, viz: desk 18 inches, space between the desk and seat 2 inches,
seat 13 inches, and passage 15 inches.--W,w, w, &c. Windows, which should be placed
high from the floor. The scale is about one tenth of an inch to a foot.
PLATE III.
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​FIGURE II.
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FIGURE I.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE III.
FIGURE I is Plan of the Second Story of the Wells School-House, in Blossom
Street, Boston. The room is designed to accommodate 200 pupils. The pupils' desks are
double.
A A Teachers' Desks.
B Platform.
C Stove. The external air is introduced through an opening in the wall,
and warmed in its passage.
K Porch.
GG Flights of Stairs.
F Small Ante-room.
H, H, H, H, H Doors.
FIGURE II.
LL An end view of the pupils' desks.
1,1,I Seats. The seats in the back row are chairs. The others are without
any support to the back. The scholars are tempted to lean backwards
against the next tier of seats, which not only throws them into an un-
natural and unhealthful posture, but is also a source of annoyance to
others.
The Seats, also, face the strong light of all the windows on one side of
the house, see Appendix C.
i
APPENDIX.
(A.)
Letter from DR. SAMUEL B. WOODWARD, Superintendent of the State
Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester. See p. 11.
WORCESTER, March 14, 1838
Hon. HORACE MANN, Secretary of the Board of Education :
Dear Sir :-Your note and queries, respecting the construction of
school-houses, came to hand yesterday; I improve the earliest oppor-
tunity to reply.
First, as to the ill effects of high and narrow benches, and seats
without backs.
High and narrow seats are not only extremely uncomfortable for the
young scholar, tending constantly to make him restless and noisy, dis-
turbing his temper and preventing his attention to his books, but they
also have a direct tendency to produce deformity of the limbs.
If the seat is too narrow, half the thigh only rests upon it: if too
high, the feet cannot reach the floor ; the consequence is that the
limbs are suspended on the centre of the thigh. Now, as the limbs of
children are pliable or flexible, they are easily made to grow out of
shape, and become crooked by such an awkward and unnatural posi-
tion.
Seats without backs, have an equally unfavorable influence upon
the spinal column. If no rest is afforded the backs of children while
seated, they almost necessarily assume a bent and crooked position;
such a position often assumed, or long continued, tends to that deform-
ity, which has become extremely common with children in modern
times and leads to disease of the spine in innumerable instances,
especially with delicate female children.
The seats in school-rooms should be so constructed that the whole
thigh can rest upon them, and at the same time the foot stand firmly
upon the floor ; all seats should have backs high enough to reach the
shoulder blades; low backs, although better than none, are far less
8
58
APPENDIX.
easy and useful than high ones, and will not prevent pain and uneasi-
ness after sitting a considerable time. Young children should be per-
mitted to change their position often, to stand on their feet, to march
and to visit the play ground. One hour is as long as any child, under
ten years of age, should be confined at once; and four hours as long
as he should be confined to his seat in one day.
Second Query—“What general effects will be produced upon the
health of children by stinting their supply of fresh air, through defects
in ventilation ?''
An answer to this query, will involve some chemical principles, in
connexion with the animal economy, not extensively and fully under-
stood.
The blood, as it circulates through the vessels in our bodies, accu-
mulates a deleterious principle called CARBON, which is a poison itself,
and must be discharged frequently, or it becomes dangerous to life.
In the process of respiration or breathing, this poisonous principle
unites in the lungs with a proportion of the oxygen of the air, and
forms carbonic acid, which is expelled from the lungs at each expira-
tion. The proportion of oxygen in the air received into the lungs, is
about twenty-one in the hundred : in the air expelled, about eighteen
in the hundred ;-the proportion of carbonic acid in the inhaled air is
one part in the hundred, in the exhaled air about four parts in the hun-
dred. By respiration, an adult person spoils, or renders unfit for this.
vital process, about one gallon of air in a minute. By this great con-
sumption of pure air in a school-room, made tight and filled with
scholars, it will be easily seen that the whole air will soon be rendered
impure, and unfit for the purpose for which it is designed. If we con-
tinue to inhale this contaminated air, rendered constantly worse the
longer we are confined in it, this process in the lungs will not be per-
formed in a perfect manner; the carbon will not all escape from the
blood, but will be circulated to the brain, and produce its deleterious
effects upon that organ, to which it is a poison. If no opportunity be
afforded for its regular escape, death will take place in a few minutes,
as in strangulation by a cord, drowning, and immersion in irrespirable
air. The cause of death, is the retention and circulation of this
poisonous principle, in all these cases.
If a smaller portion is allowed to circulate through the vessels than
will prove fatal, it produces stupor, syncope, and other dangerous
effects upon the brain and nerves. In still less quantity, it produces
dullness, sleepiness, and incapacitates us for all mental efforts and
APPENDIX.
59
physical activity. The dullness of a school, after having been long in
session in a close room, and of a congregation, during a protracted
religious service, are often attributable to this cause mainly, if not
solely. Both teacher and scholar, preacher and hearer, are often
greatly affected in this way, without being at all sensible of the cause.
Fifty scholars will very soon contaminate the air of a school room at
the rate of a gallon a minute.
Suppose a school room to be thirty feet square and nine feet high,
it will contain 13,996,000 cubic inches of atmospheric air. Accord-
ing to Davy and Thompson, two accurate and scientific chemists, one
individual respires and contaminates 6500 cubic inches of air in a
minute. Fifty scholars will respire 325,000 cubic inches in the same
time. In about forty minutes, all the air of such a room will have be-
come contaminated, if fresh supplies are not provided. The quantity
of carbonic acid produced by the respiration of fifty scholars, will be
about 750 cubic inches in an hour.
From these calculations, we must see how soon the air of a school-
room becomes unfit to sustain the animal powers, and how unfavorable
to vigorous mental effort such a contaminated atmosphere must prove
to be. To avoid this most serious evil, is a desideratum, which has
not yet been reached in the construction of school-houses.
In my opinion, every house and room which is closed for any con-
siderable time upon a concourse of people, should be warmed by pure
air from out-of-doors, heated by furnaces placed in a cellar, (and
every school-house should have a cellar,) or in some contiguous
apartment, so that the supply of air for the fire should not be from the
school-room. Furnaces for warming external air, may be constructed
cheaply, so as effectually to answer the purposes of warmih and venti-
lation.
When a quantity of warm fresh air is forced into a school-room by
means of a furnace, the foul air is forced out at every crevice, and at
the ventilating passages—the currents are all warm quite to these pas-
sages.
But if the room is warmed by a stove or fireplace, the cold air from
without rushes in at every passage and every crevice, and while the
parts of the body nearest the fire are too warm, the current of cold
air rushing to the fire to sustain the combustion, keep all the other
parts cold and uncomfortable. This is a most direct way to produce
disease; nothing can affect the system more unfavorably than currents
of cold air coming upon us when quite warm.
60
APPENDIX.
I have said that school-houses should have cellars under them. The
floor of a building without a cellar is always cold, and often damp;
this tends to keep the feet of scholars cold, while the head, in a region
of air much warmer, will be kept hot. This is both unnatural and
unhealthful. The feet should always be kept warm and the head cool.
No person can enjoy good health whose feet are habitually cold. In
school-rooms heated by stoves, the feet are very liable to be cold,
while the upper stratum of air, kept hot and dry by a long reach of
pipe, produces a very unpleasant and unfavorable state of the head-
headache, vertigo and syncope often take place in such a room.
The human body is so constituted, that it can bear almost any de-
gree of heat or cold, if the change be not too sudden, and all parts of
it be subjected to it alike. We find no particular inconvenience from
respiring air at the temperature of 90 degrees on the one hand, or at
zero on the other ; but inequalities of temperature, at the same time,
affect us very differently, and can never be suffered for a long time
without danger.
There is one consideration in the preparation of furnaces for warm-
ing rooms, that should not be overlooked. The object should be to
force into the room a large quantity of air heated a few degrees above
the temperature required, rather than a small quantity at a much
higher temperature. The air chamber should be capacious, and the
passages free. The air should always be taken from out of doors, and
never from a cellar. The air of a cellar is often impure itself, and, if
pure, a cellar that is at all tight cannot furnish an adequate supply.
The whole air of a school-room should be changed at least every
hour; if oftener, it would be better. If a cellar is not much larger
than the room above it, this supply will soon be exhausted also. The
air of the cellar may be sufficient to supply the combustion of the
fuel; this is all it should do—and for this purpose it is better than air
from out of doors, as the coldness of this checks the heat, and dimin-
ishes the temperature of the fire, and its power of heating the furnace.
In giving my views on this subject, I have been so desultory as to
embrace nearly all that I can say on the other queries proposed to me.
At any rate, my letter is already of an unreasonable length, and I
must come to a close. Wishing you every success in the arduous du-
ties of your present station,
I remain truly and affectionately yours,
S. B. WOODWARD.
APPENDIX.
61
(B.)
Extract of a Letter from BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, Professor of Chemis-
try in Yale College, in reply to an inquiry similar to the SECOND
proposed to Dr. Woodward. See p. 58.
“Of our atmosphere, only one fifth part, by volume, is fitted to sus-
tain life. That portion is oxygen gas; the remaining four fifths being
azote or nitrogen gas, which, when breathed alone, kills by suffocation.
The withdrawing of the oxygen gas, by respiration or otherwise, de-
stroys the power of the atmosphere to sustain life, and this alone fur-
nishes a decisive reason, why fresh air must be constantly supplied, in
order to support animal life. But this is not all. Every contact of
the air with the lungs, generates in the human subject from 6 to 8 per
cent. of carbonic acid gas--the same gas that often destroys the lives
of people who descend, incautiously, into wells, or who remain in
close rooms, with a charcoal fire not under a flue. This gas the
carbonic acid-kills, it is true, by suffocation, as azote does, and as
water acts in drowning. But this is not all. It acts positively, with a
peculiar and malignant energy, upon the vital powers, which, even
when life is not instantly destroyed, it prostrates or paralyzes, proba-
bly through the nervous system.
I find by numerous trials, made with my own lungs, that a confined
portion of air,--sufficient, however, to fill the lungs perfectly with a
full inspiration,-is so contaminated by a single contact, that a candle
will scarcely burn in it at all; and, after three contacts, the candle
will then go out, and an animal would die in it as quickly as if im-
mersed in azote, or even in water.
It is evident, therefore, that a constant renewal of the air is indis-
pensable to safety as regards life, and no person can be compelled to
breathe, again and again, the same portions of air, without manifest
injury to health, and, it may be, danger to life.
It follows, then, that the air of apartments, and especially of those
occupied by many persons at once, ought to be thrown off by a free
ventilation, and, when blown from the lungs, the same air ought not to
be again inhaled, until it has been purified from the carbonic acid gas,
and its due proportion of oxygen gas restored. This is effected by
the upper surface of the green leaves of trees and plants, when acted
upon by the direct solar rays. The carbonic acid gas is then decom-
posed, the carbon is absorbed to sustain, in part, the life of the plant,
by affording it one element of its food, while the oxygen gas is libe-
rated and restored to the atmosphere."
62
APPENDIX.
4
(c.)
Extract of a Letter from DR. SAMUEL G. Howe, Director of the In-
stitution for the Education of the Blind, in Pearl Street, Boston.-
See p. 34.
“I take it for granted, that the existence of blindness, in the human
race, like every other physical infirmity, is the consequence of depart-
ure from the natural laws of God; that the proportion of blind per-
sons in every community is dependent upon the comparative degree of
violation of the natural laws; and that scientific observation can in
almost every case point to the kind and degree of violation.
Imperfect vision, partial and total blindness, are more common
among men than animals; and in civilized than in savage or barba-
rous nations. It seems to be well ascertained, that blindness is more
common as we approach the equator; and that on the same parallel it
is more frequent in dry sandy soils, than in humid ones.
It is supposed by some, that in very high latitudes blindness is more
frequent than in the temperate zones, on account of the strong reflec-
tion of the sun's rays by the snow; but besides that we have no statis-
tical returns to confirm this opinion, there are other causes which
make it doubtful; the solar rays are much less powerful, the days are
short, and the tendency to local or general inflammations and con-
gestions of blood, is much less in cold than in warm climates. With-
out, however, dwelling upon general rules, I will come at once to
causes operating in our own climate.
Any one, who has reflected that man was created with a perfect
physical organization--that his eye, the noblest organ of sense, was
fitted to reach to a distant star, or to examine the texture of the gossa-
mer's web, will be struck by the fact, that every tenth man he meets
is either near-sighted, or far-sighted, or weak-eyed, or has some affec-
tation or other of the vision. Now, the frequency of this departure
from the natural state of the vision, is not a fortuitous circumstance;
if there were but a single case, it must be referrible to a particular
cause; and, a fortiori, when it prevails in every section of the coun-
try, and in every generation. Let us consider the greatest derange-
ment of vision-blindness; there are very few cases, where the eye is
totally insensible to light; let us call every person blind, whose organ
of vision is so permanently deranged, that he cannot distinguish the
nails upon his fingers : for many persons can see how many fingers are
APPENDIX.
63
held up between the eye and a strong light, who cannot see the nails.
Of persons blind to this degree, and of those totally blind, there are
about one in 2000 in the United States. This calculation is warranted
by statistical returns, which are liable to error, only in putting down
too few.
Of these 6500 persons, but very few lose their vision by wounds,
injuries, or acute inflammation; the great majority are blind in
consequence of violation of the natural laws, either by themselves or
their parents; for I hold it to be indisputable, that almost every case
of congenital blindness, is the penalty paid by the sufferer for the fault
of the parent or progenitor. The number of cases of hereditary
blindness, and of hereditary tendency to diseases of the eye, which
have come under my observation, have established this beyond all
doubt in my own mind.
I have known many cases, where a parent, with defective vision, has
had half his children blind; and one case, where both parents had de-
fective vision, and all their children, seven in number, were blind.
There are, then, causes at work in our own community, which de-
stroy the vision of 1-2000th part of our population, and impair the
vision of a much greater part; and although each individual thinks
himself secure, and attributes the blindness, or defective vision of his
neighbor, to some accidental or peculiar circumstance, from which he
himself enjoys immunity, yet the cause will certainly have its effect;
the violation of the natural laws must have their penalty and their vic-
tim—as a ball, shot into a dense crowd, must hit somebody. It is in-
cumbent, then, upon each one, in his individual capacity, to avoid the
remote and predisposing, as well as the immediate causes of impaired
vision ; and it is incumbent on those, who have an influence upon the
condition and regulations of society, to use that influence for the same
end.
It would lead to tedious details, to consider the various modes in
which each individual or each parent should guard against the impair-
ment of vision; but there are some obvious dangers to which children
are exposed in schools, which may be pointed out in a few words.
You will often see a class of children reading or writing with the
sun shining on their books, or writing in a dark afternoon with their
backs to the window, and their bodies obstructing its little light; and
if you tell the master he is perilling the eyesight of his scholars, he
thinks he gives you a complete discomfiture, by saying, that he has
kept school so for ten years, and never knew a boy to become blind ;
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APPENDFX.
nevertheless, it is a cause of evil, and so surely as it exists it will be
followed by its effect.
A boy reading by twilight, or by the blaze of a fire, or by moonlight
even, will tell you he does not feel the effects; nevertheless, they fol-
low as closely as the shadow upon the substance; and, if ten years
afterwards, you see the boy selecting glasses at an optician's, and ask
him what caused his imperfect vision, he will tell you that there was
no particular cause; that is, the amount of evil done at any particular
time, was not perceptible-as a toper, whose system is tottering to
ruin, cannot believe that any particular glass of brandy ever did him
any harm.
We should never read but in the erect posture; we should never
read when the arterial system is in a state of high action; we should
never read with too much or too little light; we should never read
with a dazzling light of the sun, or fire, striking on our face.
School-rooms should be arranged in such a manner, that the light
of the sun can be admitted in the right direction—not dazzling the
eyes, but striking upon the books; there should be facilities for admit-
ting the light fully in dark weather, and for excluding it partly when
the sun shines brilliantly.
I believe an attention to the physiology and laws of vision, by pa-
rents and instructors, would be of great benefit to children, and dimin-
ish the number of opticians; for as surely as a stone thrown up will
come down, so surely does exposure to causes of evil, bring the evil,
at some time, in some way, upon somebody.
Truly yours,
SAMUEL G. HOWE.
HORACE MANN, Esq.
Secretary of the Board of Education.