of every republican commonwealth, monuments of its true strength, without which the existence of a democratic State is impossible.

Again, we fail to apply to schools and schoolhouses a principle of otherwise universal application. The potency with which the circumstances, the surroundings and the associations of early childhood tell upon the future character is admitted by all, and by none more unhesitatingly than many men who regularly resist every effort to rebuild or repair the schoolhouse in their own district. The general principle is acknowledged, for it cannot well be denied, but its special application is ignored.

With regard to the effect of the architecture of our schoolhouses in its educational influence, the author of " Country School Houses" remarks

Ordinary use is not the only value of buildings. They may be so constructed as to appeal to the higher sentiments, and render important aid in developing the better and finer feelings of our nature. This is the proper province of architecture, and the work of the architect is to so fashion our buildings and arrange their details, that while they may answer the purposes of their erection, they may, at the same time, satisfy that love of the beautiful, the symmetrical, and the harmonious, which is innate in the human heart. The faculty of the mind which conceives this sentiment is what we call taste, and it is one which needs constant and systematic cultivation.

In this country but little attention has yet been given to those things which elevate and re fine. The entire energies of our people were early and exclusively devoted to the rude task of subduing the wilderness and providing the necessaries of life. They could bestow no time on pursuits which did not directly conduce to the simplest ends of human existence. Consequently their descendants are a prompt, resolute, and vigorous race, with more determination to do, and more energy in doing, than any the world has ever seen before. But the arts of refinement which were, at first, through absolute necessity, neglected, are now habitually despised or disregarded. No people on earth who have attained to an equal degree of intellectual and moral culture, evince so little taste and refinement as ourselves.

We begin, however, to discern the dawning of a better day. We begin to feel that there are wants in our nature that are not to be satisfied by mere material appliances. We begin to appreciate the beautiful, and it influence in developing our higher powers. Evidences of this change of public sentimen may be found in the attention now paid to art; in the patronage beginning to be bestowed upon artists; and in the improvement of the architecture of public buildings and private residences in many parts of the country. The results of this improved sentiment re-act upon the community, softening down the sharp features of our national character, multiplying those little amenities which give grace, beauty and dignity to our life, and even aiding to develop the Christian virtues of faith and charity.

Numerous and potent are the influences furnished by literature for the cultivation of the taste; but impressions more vivid and lasting may be made by the presentation to the senses of sublime or beautiful objects, such as natural scenery, landscape improved by art, and the best productions of sculpture, painting and architecture.

Of the various influences which tend to mature and refine the taste, we have occasion, in this work, to refer only to those of architecture. The importance and necessity of this art, to the great work of education, we shall endeavor to show.

Architecture, primarily, deals only with forms which address the eye. It embodies ideas of proportion, symmetry, variety, harmony, and unity.

By proportion is meant that due relation which should exist between the different dimensions of a building in order to convey the idea of correctness. We frequently see buildings in which this princip'e is violated, and are pained at the want of taste so prominently displayed. Buildings too long for their height, too high for their length, or too wide for either, appear to be the "rule," rather than the "exception;" yet a well-proportioned structure is immediately and almost universally recognized as such, and cannot fail to afford general satisfaction and delight.

Symmetry requires a proper balance of parts. The regular placing of doors and windows, and the disposal of all the details, so that none shall seem out of place, are in obedience to this principle.

Variety is the opposite of monotony, and would induce us to relieve in some manner blank walls, and to break up long horizontal lines, so as to produce an agreeable effect, like that made by a diversified landscape, or a number of views in nature, each differing from the other. This would lead us also to avoid sameness in a range of build ings, and, within certain limits, to give diversity to details. It would forbid the erection of those vast square or oblong piles of brick and mortar, which now so frequently burden, without adorning, the face of the earth.

Harmony may be defined as the limit of variety. It is that peculiar relation which all the parts should have to each other, producing in the mind a sense of completeness and adaptation. It allows no incongruities, and indulges in no conceits. Harmony in architecture, as in music, so arranges and blends the different parts, that each seems an indispensable element of a perfect whole.

Unity refers to the evident design which pervades the structure; the one idea, which has not only harmonized the parts with each other, but adapted the whole to its uses. In accordance with this principle, while all the other laws of taste in architecture should be observed, they should be subordinated to the object of the construction. As the mind becomes familiar with beautiful objects, and with the laws of beauty, its sensibility to moral excellence is cultivated, the manners are conformed to the principles of harmony, and the effects produced upon the whole man are of the most beneficial and lasting character. The influence ascribed by Plato, in his Republic, to a musical education, may be predicated with equal truth of a judicious culture in this department of art. It is essential, he says, "because it makes rhythm and harmony to settle deeply in the inner soul, and take strong hold of it, carrying with them comeliness, and making a man comely minded. Also, because one so matured will have the quickest perception of all faults and imperfections in art or nature, and, regarding them with just aversion, will admire and love the beautiful. This he will receive with joy into his soul, will feed on it, and assimilate his own nature to its beauty, will learn to cen sure and hate deformity, even in early youth, while yet incapable of understanding the reason why, and when the reason comes will embrace it gladly, as a familiar thing."

In those countries where architecture has reached its highest development, taste and refinement exert their greatest influence. As an instance of the refining effect of beautiful objects, the fact might be mentioned that, in many of the old countries, sculp tured decorations in architecture have remained for ages uninjured, save by the action of the elements; and that even after the edifices they once adorned have fallen into ruin, a feeling of veneration in the hearts of the people seems to have shielded these trophies of art from profanation.

In our more logical and practical communities, the destructive passion would be restrained by no such sentiment; and not twenty-four hours would elapse after an old building of celebrity had been abandoned, before fragments would be chipped off for mementoes, or pounded to pieces, to satisfy the analytical spirit of some ruthless traveler. Beauty of form, however, seems, in some measure, to afford protection. An old or mean-looking building, deserted or unoccupied, is a target for boys, and even for children of a larger growth; and every one feels an instinctive desire to rid the earth of such deformity. But a complete and beautiful structure generally enjoys a longer. if not an entire exemption from injury. When in really and universally cultivated communities, there will be no danger of the wanton desecration of beautiful objects.

Little or no attention has ever been paid to the elements of beauty in the school. house architecture of this country, as the poor apologies for schoolhouses, so common throughout the older States, painfully show. They seem to have been erected simply for shelter, and with the smallest possible cost at the outset; to call it cheapness or economy would be a misnomer. They stand as vile offenses against good taste, and ugly excrescences upon the landscape. They make no appeal to the higher sentiments, and consequently no effort can preserve the building or fixtures from disfigurement and ruin. Every teacher knows the difficulty of protecting a schoolhouse from the ubiquit ous and all-devouring Yankee jack-knife! The result is that the building, unsightly when new, becomes more so through the rudeness which its very appearance stimulates. The busy fingers of time may soften its outlines, and spread over its surface sober tints of brown; but the innate ugliness of the structure defies all efforts to make it other than a monstrosity.

In the erection of every schoolhouse particular care should be taken to observe the rules of taste as regards form. In our country districts, where a small and plain building only is demanded, we need to consider proportion and symmetry alone; the other principles of architecture applying chiefly to larger and more pretending structures. if this is done, if our school houses all conform to these two fundamental laws, they can.

not fail of becoming strong educational influences in the right direction. The advantages, in this regard, of obeying the principles of architecture in the construction of schoolhouses, may be summed up in a few words.

1. If the building is an object of beauty, the very sight of it inspires emotions of

pleasure.

2. It adorns and beautifies the landscape of which it forms a part.

3. It becomes an attractive place to children, and does not repel them, as now, by its deformity.

4. It practically teaches ideas of proportion and symmetry, and new and exalted conceptions of beauty of form.

5. It throws over property the shield of beauty, and so checks, and finally eradi. cates, the rudeness which is stimulated to destructiveness by deformity.

G. It forms one of those influences which have most power over the heart and affections, directly aiding the teacher in the most difficult and important part of his work.

In adorning and decorating schoolhouses, however, care should be taken lest the cost exceed the means or inclination of those for whom it is built, neither should any mere ornament interfere with health or comfort.

Let this principle be remembered by all. "That schoolhouses, however small, should never be built without conforming to those general principles of taste which are universally recognized by cultivated people," so that if they do not exert influence in elevating taste, at least they will have the negative excellence of not violating it. The work of education in those higher departments which recognize beauty, both of forms and morals, and the subtile and mysterious relations which exist between the two, at best is an onerous and difficult one, and every external influence which assists in forwarding it becomes a positive benefit.

Great weight is lent to such reasoning by the experience of each individual. When in those hours of solemn self-examination, which surely come to all who are neither brutish nor insensate, we inquire into the scope and value of our own intellectual attainments, and compare ourselves as we really are, with ourselves as we consciously feel we might have been, we become painfully convinced of the existence of some radical defect in our own culture. We become aware of our failure in reaping even a tithe of the rich harvest of intellectual acquisition that has been fully within our reach. Having breathed an atmosphere instinct with literary stimulus, surrounded with the thousand appliances for selfculture so characteristic of the age, born and bred in the midst of a flood of intellectual light, we have intellectually failed as individuals. That sound, hearty and in-wrought love of knowledge and its pursuit, the very essence of scholarly culture and without which true scholarship is impossible, has never been with us that unfailing guide to higher and better aspirations for pure and lofty attainments, whose ministrations we readily believe to be little short of angelic. Thus conscious of failure, we look back over our own lives, and find our faiut attachment to knowledge, or sometimes even our positive disgust at the effort necessary in its pursuit, dating far back in our lives and beginning in the early days of youth, and unmistakably attributable as a natural result, to the tame and lifeless instruction then given us, and to the unpleasant and sometimes hateful sur. roundings and associations that are connected with school life.

As a strong and steady love of knowledge for its own sake and a true appreciation of its rich gifts is the most valuable possession possible to the student, and the most reliable harbinger of his future success; so the reverse of the proposition is true, and a distaste for scholarly pursuits is an insurmountable obstacle to intellectual advancement.

Herein mainly is the reason of the very great importance that attaches to the character of the school house and surroundings. Where the house is old, dingy and dilapidated, destitute of any inclosure for the convenience and recreation of the children, and without sheds and other necessary out-buildings, it cannot be looked upon by those attending with any feeling of attachment or respect. The impression it leaves upon the minds and hearts of the children is dreary and distasteful, and often positively hateful; and directly from this the feeling of disgust is likely to embrace within its scope everything connected with the school in particular, or with the pursuit of knowledge generally. And thus the schools failing to stir the minds of the children and animate them with a hungering and thirsting after knowledge, they start in life without any hearty appreciation of either the pleasure or duty involved in the continuous efforts for self-culture; and soon the cares and business of life engross the attention, and comparative ignorance or superficiality necessarily result; for lacking the strong determination that otherwise would grow out of a strong attachment for study and thought, and would insure indefinite improvement, they yield to indolence and mental incompetency.

There are various economical considerations connected with the subject of constructing school houses that do not often receive the prominence which they deserve. It does not necessarily cost any more to build a neat, tasteful and convenient house, than to built one that shall have neither of these characteristics, and therefore the allegation of great expense, so often made, has no more direct application to desirable and elegant school houses, than to those which are not. Schools, like families and individuals, have certain requirements of convenience and necessity, and, as in all other cases, edifices erected for the use of schools should possess a special adaptation to the peculiar requirements of the schools.

In the want of any systematic and intclligent adaptation to the special purposes for which they were designed, the chief deficiencies of our school houses are to be found.

With regard to the principles to be observed in the provision of school houses, and the general rules for their external and internal arrangement, the following remarks from the same work-"Johonnot's Country School Houses"—are more to the point than any thing I have seen elsewhere.

From Johonnot's "Country Schoolhouses," Part II.

PRINCIPLES TO BE OBSERVED.

CHAPTER I.
Health.

The preservation of health should be considered a matter of prime importance in the erection of every school-house. Everything else, including cost, comfort, and convenience, should be subordinated to this. Unless our children can be educated in a way compatible with the preservation of their health, it were better at once to tear down our schoolhouses, and abolish our whole school system. Minds refined, however highly, in broken down and sickly bodies, are of very little practical value in this world.

To accomplish the end so much to be desired in this regard, great care should be taken in the following particulars.

1. The Location. This should be at a distance from all sources of malaria. The foul breath of decaying vegetation, or of stagnant water, becomes a fruitful source of disease and death. Unseen and unnoticed it insidiously does its work, and spreads the atmosphere of the charnel house as far as its influence extends, The diseases seeming to be epidemic, which sometimes break out in schools, may often be traced to some neighboring swamp or marsh, or heap of rotting vegetables. Some manufactures also generate disagreeable gases, which, if breathed for any considerable time, are deleterious in the extreme. The school house should be placed at a distance of these sources from disease.

Again; it should be situated away from the noise and dust of the street. There is scarcely anything more annoying or unwholesome than the clouds of dust which, upon a dry summer's day, are driven along the highway, covering and clogging everything in their path. Let the location, if possible, be upon a hill-side, where it may be free from these annoyances, and where the purest air is poured out in unstinted measure. For the moral health of the pupils, let the school house be placed at a distance from places where scenes of brutality or debauchery are ever exhibited.

2. The Size of the School-Room. This is a consideration of great importance. Every pupil should have sufficient room to sit and move without being confined or jostled by any one else; and there should be sufficient space in the room for a large reservoir of air. Packing chil dren close together, so that the breath and atmosphere of each is shared with all his neighbors, is an unmitigated evil. Every child has a right to his own personality, and his share of uncontaminated air; and whatever deprives him of these, becomes an outrage. This is often done however, by the closeness of contact with others, into which he is forced, and by the limited capacity of the apartment in which he is compelled to sit.