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Appeal to the Friends of Education.

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never be wholly evaded, until it ceases to be true that the sins of the parents are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

We conjure those individuals then, who have it in their power to establish schools, lyceums, lectures, libraries, &c., for the benefit of the operatives whom they employ, to take the matter into serious consideration; not merely as a general duty to God and their fellow men, but also as a duty to themselves and their families; nay, even as a matter of mere economy.

We call upon those friends of education-whose hearts beat high with philanthropy-residing in the vicinity of large factories, to exert themselves in endeavoring to convince the proprietors of these establishments of the importance and necessity of improving every means in their power for promoting the physical, intellectual, social and moral improvement, not of the children merely of their laborers, but of the adults of both sexes and of all ages. You know not what will be the result of your ef forts till you have made the experiment. Perhaps they stand ready, even now, to listen to your suggestions, and to co-operate with you and your associates, in effecting the reformation you seek. Or if not, perhaps it needs but your earnest and faithful endeavors to awaken them, and to lead them to measures upon which Divine Providence will bestow a most liberal blessing. Again we say, you know not your strength, in these cases, till you have tried it. Moreover the work must be done. It cannot long be deferred. The time is at hand when even a low public sentiment will not permit such blots to darken and disgrace' our country. The character of the inmates of factories and large mechanics' shops must and will be elevated; but the sooner it is done the better, both as respects the public happiness and the public safety.

There are not a few females, in every manufacturing village of country, a portion of whose time might be devoted to preparing the way for this most desirable work. Grant that they have not the power in their hands-physically speaking-to accomplish any thing; they have in their hands a moral power, I mean a kind and degree of influence which needs but to be put forth, and the work of the intellectual emancipation of factory inmates would soon be achieved. Were the means of improving the minds and hearts of these persons to become as common a topic of conversation among the ladies in their circles, as some other topics now are, it would not be possible for the present state of things to remain. A change would follow as inevitably as the magnetic needle turns towards the pole.

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Interior of a School Room.

DISTRICT SCHOOL HOUSES.

THE following is a representation of the interior of a school room, constructed according to the recommendations of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, in his late excellent report on School Houses.

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A represents the Teacher's Desk.

B B Teacher's Platform, from 1 to 2 feet in height.
C Step for ascending the Platform.

L L Cases for Books, Apparatus, Cabinet, &c.
H Pupils' single Desks, 2 feet by 18 inches.

Explanation of the Engraving.

M Pupils' Seats, 1 foot by 20 inches.
1 Aisles, 1 foot 6 inches in width.
D Place for Stove, if one be used.

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E Room for recitation, for retiring in case of sudden indisposition, for interviews with parents, when necessary, &c. It may, also, be used for the Library, &c.

FFFFF Doors into the boys' and girls' entries-from the entries into the school-room, and from the school-room into the recitation room.

GGGG Windows. The windows on the sides are not lettered.

The seats for small scholars, without desks, if needed, to be movable, and placed as the general arrangement of the school shall render convenient.

'Where there is but one teacher, the space between the desks and the entries are to be used for recitation. Here, also, is the place for black boards, whether movable 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.

'The following is designed to represent an end view of the pupils' Desks and Seats.

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'J represents the Pupils' Seats, and K the shape of the board or plank which forms the side and support of the desks.

'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.'

We have seen numerous representations of improved school rooms, not only for our own State, but for New York, Ohio, and other States; but no one, (as we observed in our last number) which we have seen, comes so near our own plan-developed many years ago-as that which is here presented. The general outlines of the two are the same; but the plan of Mr Mann is certainly an improved one. It is more simple, and at the same time, more philosophical than any we have before

seen.

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Warming Rooms by a Furnace.

The above representation will probably create a desire in all who are interested in the subject of common school education, to see the Report we have alluded to, from which indeed the above plan is taken; and we wish some method were devised to bring it within their reach. All we can do shall be done to circulate it; but for the present we have no other means of doing even this, except by commending it warmly, and making large extracts from it.

The Secretary dwells at length on the evils of breathing bad air in school rooms, or any where else; and adduces much evidence on this subject. Among other things, he presents letters from Prof. Silliman, of Yale College, and Dr Woodward of our Lunatic Hospital. But it does seem to me, that of the importance of ventilating school rooms, so much has been said of late years, that the public cannot, as a general rule, be ignorant. We would at least charitably hope so. On the means of VENTILATION and of warming a house properly at the same time, Mr Mann, in his Report, thus observes.

'The best apparatus for expelling foul air from a room consists in the proper means of introducing a supply of fresh warm air. Undoubtedly, 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 schoolhouse, and a cellar could ordinarily be dug and stoned as cheaply as a wood-house could be built. I suppose, also, that a schoolhouse 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 furnace 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.

'Feet can be warmed or dried at the orifices for admitting the heated 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 skilt and science.

Thermometers in School Rooms.

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We often meet with a prejudice against furnaces, which belongs not to the furnaces themselves, but 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.'

Against lowering the windows to ventilate school rooms-to which we were formerly accustomed-Mr M. objects; and with some reason. Still, with care, we think the evils to which he refers could be avoided; at any rate, the plan is better than suffocation. But we will quote a paragraph of the Report.

The common expedient of letting down windows from the top, so that the noixous 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 rooms-fulls of air be admitted, a portion of that which has been rendered 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.'

To aid in regulating the TEMPERATURE of school rooms, Mr M. thus defends the use, in all cases, of thermometers.

'A thermometer should be kept in every school-room, and hung on the coolest side of it. The proper temperature should be determined by unchangeable laws; not by the variable feelings or caprice of any individual.

Without a thermometer, if the teacher be habituated 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 temperature, 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 inconsiderate master will burn a whole room-full of children during the chill, and freeze them during the fever of

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