such arrangements are not ordinarily convenient, rather than to any prevailing conviction of their impropriety, or any general and settled purpose to avoid them. The case is named as at least strong evidence that the pertinency of considerations, involving a regard either to taste, comfort, or even health itself, is generally overlooked or disregarded, in fixing upon a site for a school house. At all events these purposes are all exposed to be violated under the prevailing neglect of districts to secure the possession of sufficient ground for a yard around the school house. But it would not seem necessary to urge, beyond the bare suggestion, the importance of providing for school houses a comfortable location, a sufficient yard and play ground, a wood house and other out-buildings, a convenient access to water, and a surrounding of the premises with shade trees which might serve for shelter, as well as delight the eye, and aid to render the school house, what it should be, one of the most attracting and delightful places of resort upon the face of the earth, It should be such that when the child shall have changed into the gray-haired man, and his memory wanders back through the long vista of vanished years, seeking for some object on which it may repose, this shall be the spot where it shall love to rest.

"In the construction of the school house, embracing its material, style of architecture, and finish, as little care and taste are exhibited, as might be expected from the indifference manifested in regard to its location and surrounding circumstances. Cheapness of construction seems, in most cases, to be the great governing principle, which decides upon its materials, its form, and all its internal arrangements. No complaint on this score could justly be made, if the general condition of these buildings were clearly and fairly attributed to want of ability. But while our other edifices, both public and private, have improved in elegance, convenience and taste, with the increasing wealth of our citizens, our school houses linger in the rear and bear the impress of a former age. In this respect,

"That which in days of yore we were
We at the present moment are."

"Low walls might be instanced as one of the prevailing defects in school house architecture. The quantity of air contained in a school room of the usual height, is so small as to be soon exhausted of its oxygen; and the dullness, headache and depression which succeed to this result, are but too well known and too often felt, although they may fail of being attributed to their true cause; and why should our children be robbed of a comfortable supply of that pure and wholesome air, with which our Creator, in the largeness and richness of his bounty, has surrounded the earth and filled the sky? But if the condition of the houses is such, as in part to prevent the injurious effects arising from a deficiency of pure air, by means of broken windows and gaping crevices, then colds, coughs, and as the ultimate and crowning result consumption, (and of this disease, what thousands of cases have had their foundations laid in the school house!) must be the consequence of this sort of exposure. This is true in regard to all classes and conditions of pupils. But it should be

distinctly kept in mind, although it is ordinarily overlooked and forgotten, that children accustomed to be comfortably protected against cold or vicissitudes of temperature, at home, will inevitably suffer the more when exposed to them in the school house. And here is an additional reason why these structures should be improved, as our dwelling houses are generally becoming more comfortable.

"But there is not room here for details, not even to exhibit this topic in all its important bearings. And it has been thus hinted at only to prove that the general charge of faulty construction is not wholly unfounded.

"It was the purpose of the Superintendent to discuss at some length, the pernicious influence exerted, both upon the health of pupils, and their progress in learning, by the miserable structures in which the State abounds, but the extent of the remarks already made precludes it. One cause of the prevailing fault in regard to the construction and internal arrangement of school houses, doubtless, is the want of proper models. Districts, when about erecting a school house, cannot well do more than follow the examples before them. To form the plan of a proper school house, one well adapted to all the various ends which should be sought, such as the convenience, comfort and health of pupils, convenience for supervision and conduct of the school, and facilities for the most successful prosecution of study, would require such an extent of observation and so full an acquaintance with the laws of health, of mind and morals, and then such a skill in designing a structure in which all the necessary conditions should be observed and secured, that it would be unreasonable to expect that a district could command them, without an opportunity to avail itself of the experience and observation of others. But districts have almost universally felt this lack of guidance. But it is believed that hereafter, information on the subject of school house architecture, will be more accessible; and if, as a step, some one district in every town in the State, would avail itself of the necessary information and make a vigorous effort to secure the erection of a well located, well planned and well constructed school house, they would perform an act of high public beneficence, as well as confer upon themselves an inestimable blessing. And shall not one or two years realize the accomplishment of this noble purpose? What district will lead the van?"

During Mr. Eaton's whole term of office it was found necessary to continue to stir the public mind upon the subject, and his subsequent reports, as well as those of the County Superintendents, abound in discussions of school houses. And no better service has ever been done to the cause of education in the State than was accomplished by those faithful men, although the fruits of that labor were not in the matter of school houses immediately apparent. At the beginning of my own official labors, as Secretary, wherever I found an improved class of school buildings, I invariably ascertained, upon inquiry, that they were the results of an agitation of the public mind first created by the efforts of the State and County Superintendents. And these results are traceable to the present day, and it is not exaggeration to say that in this direction alone the State has been abundantly compensated for all her outlay under the system of State and County Superintendents.

Great and varied improvements have been made in the character of school buildings, but the movement has been an extremely slow one, and confined rather to particular localities. A very large proportion of the school houses of Vermont are now entirely unfit for the purposes for which they were intended, and all movements towards their improvement are met with great and stubborn opposition. I have in the Institutes and general educational meetings so often presented this matter, that while I deem the subject one of commanding importance, a thorough and searching discussion of which must be had not only occasionally, but frequently, I am disposed to call in the assistance of other friends of education to some extent, here.

Were an accurate and entirely faithful picture to be given of the condition of many of the school houses now in actual use in our state, it would scarcely receive credit from any one, although there are few towns in the whole State, that could not furnish existing school houses that would tax the genius of a Cruikshank to caricature.

And this state of things is not at all peculiar to our State, as will appear from the following extract from a most excellent work which I take pleasure now, as at various times before, to commend-I refer to "Johonnott's Country School Houses," published in New York.

In that work the author says:

“FAULTS OF OUR PRESENT SCHOOL HOUSES.

"The past few years have witnessed a great change in public opinion with regard to the construction of school houses. Many of the worst features of the past age have been, in some measure, remedied; but there is still much to be accomplished in this respect. In most parts of the country, school houses are still deficient in the following respects:

A

1. They are the most unsightly buildings in the district. traveller, passing through a section of country, can generally distinguished the school house by these characteristics. It is situated in a forlorn and lonely place. It exhibits every mark of neglect and dilapidation. It is entirely exposed to the depredations of estray cattle and unruly boys, by being situated in the street, and not protected by a fence. It is unpainted, and nearly half unglazed. Its style is nondescript, being too small for a barn, too deficient in the elements of just proportion for a dwelling, too lonely and too much neglected for the out-building of a farm, and, in short, too repulsive in all respects, and exhibiting too many marks of the most parsimonious economy to be anything but a school house.

2. They are not large enough to accommodate the pupils that attend the school. The room is so confined that the scholars are forced into uncomfortable and inconvenient proximity to each other. Their work is interrupted, and their personal rights violated. The young, the weak, and the innocent are forced into the immediate atmosphere of coarsness and impurity, without a possibility of counteracting influences. Again, the ceilings are so low that there is a very inadequate supply of fresh air, and, as a consequence of all this, unavoidable damage is incurred

by both body and soul. Proper discipline, in such schools, becomes a matter of impossibility, as the inexorable laws of nature oppose and and render nugatory the teacher's work.

3. No proper means of ventilation are provided. The quantity of air, limited at first, shortly becomes impure, and there are no means of changing it. A poisoning process then commences, the virulence of which is just in propertion to the tightness of the room. A badly built or dilapidated school-house here becomes a positive blessing, by preventing the exclusion of pure air from without. Besides the injury to health, this vitiated atmosphere actually obviates, by its stupefying action on the brain, the purposes of the school.

4. The buildings are miserably put together. The foundations are so poorly laid that they soon tumble, and the superstructures are racked to pieces, or stand askew. The frames and finish are of the cheapest kind, and soon the winds find their way through them in every direction. The desks and benches are ingeniously inconvenient and uncomfortable, producing pains and aches innumerable. Most people of the present generation have a vivid and painful recollection of the seats of our old school houses, without backs, and often too high to permit the feet to touch the floor. The suffering and weariness so produced were almost equal to the punishment of exposure at the pillory, or confinement in the stocks, bestowed in olden times upon criminals. The whole construction of the building, both external and internal, was such that it merited and received no repair, and soon lapsed into a mass of ruin.

5. Yards or play-grounds for the children are scarcely ever provided. Even in country places, where land is very cheap, the schoolhouse is frequently-and in the older States, most frequently-placed directly in the street, generally at a corner where two roads meet. Not one inch of ground is set apart for the use of the pupils. There is no place for recreation or privacy, but all is exposed to the public eye. The street is the only play-ground, and filth, within doors and without, is the consequence. With such an arrangement, it is impossible to inculcate those lessons of neatness and refinement which are among the most important objects of education.

6. A majority of schoolhouses are destitute of the necessary outbuildings. In many cases there is no privy at all; and in many others there is but one for a large school of both sexes. A man in a Christian land who would erect a house for his home without a privy, would be considered worse than a heathen; yet this is often done in the country school districts, although in a school both sexes are brought together without the constant purifying and restraining influences which belong to the household. Every feeling of refinement, and even of decency, is outraged by the exposure thus induced, and in some measure the same results ensue from having but one small, exposed privy for a large school.

7. In fine, it is the united testimony of superintendents, committees of investigation, and boards of school visitors, that in many places the pupils in school are worse provided for in all things belonging to comfort, convenience, and the cultivation of good manners and morals, than the inmates of our pauper houses, or the prisoners in our penitentiaries."

As I have already stated, decided and manifold improvements in the style of school architecture, in our State, are everywhere perceptible, and wherever found are recognizable as the natural and almost inevitable results of strong local agitation upon the subject, and while they are full of encouragement as to the progress heretofore made, are to be received as stimulants to future exertion.

But notwithstanding these many indications of improvement, the descriptions of faulty and improper houses above quoted, as existing in other States, and in this State at a former period, will be recognized by the observant as exactly applicable to many schoolhouses now in use in Vermont.

The inferiority of the buildings appropriated to the purposes of edu cation, to the dwelling houses, and public buildings devoted to other purposes, is the one point in reference to the matter that strikes one with surprise. That schoolhouses, good or bad, should be only as good or as bad as the generality of adjacent and neighboring dwellings, need not excite very much wonder. But it is, and to the thoughtful always will be, a matter for wonder, that kind and loving parents who delight to improve and beautify their own homes, that thus they may increase the enjoyment of their children and promote their improvement, should be willing, in common with their neighbors of the same disposition, to tolerate as a home for their children in school hours, a building which not one of the circle would accept as a home for the same children in all the other hours of their youth.

Thus, it will often be found in our State, that the meanest school. houses in the vicinity will be in the very neighborhoods that are the best able to build new ones; and thus the inhabitants stigmatize themselves by the continued existence, and occupation for school purposes, of an edifice inferior in every respect to the dwellings of the major portion of the community.

As a people, we fail clearly to perceive and fully to appreciate the rcal grandeur of a State organization for the education of every one of its children, and led away and provoked by the practical details neces sary in the application of the State school system to the wants of individual localities, we often are tempted to look upon public schools as simple asylums; as places of resort for the children of the poor and needy, and grumblingly submit to the requisite taxation, but desire it to be as small as can be consistent with a decent compliance with the law of the land.

When, as the result of powerful and persistent discussion, the public mind is brought to look upon common schools not as necessary burdens, but as the reliable springs of enduring intelligence and prosperity; when the State organism for the education of its children shall be recognized, as it deserves to be, and as it will be, as the chiefest glory of our republican institutions, all mean and niggardly notions about schools will disappear, and our dingy and dirty school buildings, that here and there mar the general aspect of Vermont, will be known no more.

When that day comes, schools will be considered, not as merely benevolent or charitable institutions, but as most indispensable safeguards