COMMENTS ON SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE AND SCHOOL GROUDNS.
(ILLUSTRATED.)
By JOHN R. KIRK, State Supt. Public Schools, Jefferson City, Mo.
(EXTRACTS FROM ANNUAL REPORT OF 1897)
JEFFERSON CITY, MO.: TRIBUNE PRINTING COMPANY, STATE PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 1808.
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[figure 1, illustration: a furnace occupies the center of a classroom with haphazard pipes suspended from the ceiling while students get up from their desks and have side conversations before a helpless teacher]
THE BADLY ARRANGED SCHOOLROOM.
Disorder, idleness, mischief; discomfort, illtemper, disease—due to unfavorable physical conditions.
FIGURE 1.
[figure 2, illustration: students sit neatly at desks arranged in rows before a relaxed teacher while a furnace is unobstructive at the back of the classroom beside windows and bookshelves]
THE WELL ARRANGED SCHOOLROOM.
Good order and industrious habits fostered; comfort and health promoted—by favorable physical conditions.
FIGURE 2.
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SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE AND SCHOOL GROUNDS.
The location of the schoolhouse site, the condition of the school premises and the construction of the building are matters of such far-reaching consequences that I venture to insert in this, my third annual report, a few cuts showing architectural designs and offer a few suggestions regarding the same. Of the new school buildings in rural districts erected during the past year, some twenty-five or thirty are believed to conform substantially to modern ideas as to hygienic requirements. From present indications the box-car pattern for country schoolhouses will soon be abandoned.
The following recommendations are respectfully submitted:
1. The schoolhouse site should be a high and healthful place.
2. The earth should be heaped up underneath the floor of the schoolhouse.
3. Drinking water should be of undoubted purity.
4. Part of every school ground should be sodded with blue grass.
5. Every school ground should have some shade trees.
6. The outhouses should always be kept clean and decent.
NOTE.—The typical school outhouse has a very bad influence. It is commonly a specimen of physical filth and a source of moral poison. It is even for potent for evil than the deadly cigarette, because it infects like a pestilence great numbers of good children who otherwise could avoid impure ideals. Every school outhouse should first be coated inside and outside with paint containing coarse sand. Then a bucket of whitewash and a brush should be kept at hand so as to cover up promptly the vile language which the evil-minded delight to display in such places.
7. A close board fence seven feet high should separate the boys’ playground from that of the girls, at the rear of the schoolhouse.
8. Fences should be kept in good repair.
9. There should be a board or gravel walk from the front gate to the schoolhouse door.
10. There should be some kind of walk from the schoolhouse door to each outhouse.
11. There should be a wood-shed or coal-house in which to keep kindlings and some dry fuel.
Figure 1 represents a condition frequently found in rural and village school districts where the people spend their money freely enough, but without regard to convenience, comfort or health; where the accepted doctrine seems to be that four walls, a roof, a floor, several uncurtained windows and a door constitute a schoolroom regardless of the order of arrangement; where a few patent seats, a big naked stove and 30 feet of pipe are thought to be sufficient equipment and that without regard to relative position. Talk about discipline in such a school. Look at the conditions:
1. The seating is needlessly broken into by the stove.
2. Those near the stove suffer intensely; their heads and faces are overheated.
3. Those near the walls suffer; their feet are cold much of the time.
4. The children on the recitation seat suffer; the radiated heat from the stove and the pipes overheats their heads.
5. The teacher is continually distressed by the heat of the stove pipe pouring down upon her head—”headache, headache, headache.”
6. The long overhead pipe seldom has wires enough to hold it in position.
7. The blackboard occupies the left side of the room while the windows are on the right—a common fault even in town and village schools. Light should come from the left and rear.
8. The enormous drum aids in baking the pupils’ heads (catarrh, throat trouble).
9. The woodbox, an unsightly catch-all, should occupy a less conspicuous place.
10. No dictionary, book-case, maps or pictures are in sight.
11. The teacher’s attention is frequently distracted by unfavorable conditions, the children become dilatory, mischievous; study is extremely difficult; discipline, impossible.
FIGURE 2.
Now contrast figure 2 with figure 1. One costs about as much money as the other. One favors order, the other disorder. One contributes to comfort, the other to discomfort. One promotes health, the other breeds disease. One encourages study and good behavior; the other, idleness and disorder. In figure 2 note the position of: 1, the children; 2, the teacher; 3, the stove; 4, the pipe; 5, the book-cases; 6, the tables; 7, the seats. Now look for the same things in figure 1.
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[figure 3, blueprint: the Foundation Plan of the school is shown with arrows where “foul air” is to flow out and “fresh air” is to flow in; the Floor Plan is shown with its rows of desks in the middle, bookcases and dictionary tables in the back beside windows and the stove, windows along the viewer’s righthand wall with a teacher’s desk in the front right corner and a “primary pupil’s table” in the front left, then a workroom and boys’ and girls’ cloak rooms with a porch on the viewer’s lefthand; a key along the right defines how each of these pieces are labeled]
A PRACTICAL AND ECONOMICAL ONE ROOM SCHOOL HOUSE FOR A RURAL SCHOOL
FIGURE 3.
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FIGURE 3.
1. Figure 3 represents the foundation and floor-plan of a schoolhouse for one teacher. It may be built from 24 to 26* feet by 36 feet, outside measurements, at a cost of $600.
2. The stove occupies a corner and is surrounded by a sheet-iron jacket. The brick flue is double, having one chamber about 9 by 12 inches for smoke, and another about 12 by 18 inches for ventilation. The stovepipe enters the flue from the front, passing just over and in front of the book-cases. No one suffers on account of heat radiated from the stove or pipe. (See figure 4.)
3. Fresh air is admitted underneath the stove by a duct from the outside; it comes up under the stove, but inside the sheet-iron jacket. The air in contact with the stove is warmed and rises. This draws in the cold, pure air from the outside through the duct. The air when warmed goes almost directly to the ceiling, descends into other parts of the room, escapes from the room through eight little floor registers (indicated by the arrows), passes along under the floor to the opening into the ventilating chamber, rises through the ventilating chamber and escapes side by side with the smoke at the top of the double flue.
NOTE.—The iron jacket has a door not shown in this picture. The door should be large, reaching down to the floor. It may reach to top of jacket, if preferred.
NOTE.—The foundation is air-tight. To avoid danger from foul gases no low places should be left under the floor for possible pools. Better heap up the earth under the floor and occasionally drop a little lime through the floor registers.
4. The temperature is gauged by the thermometer hanging in plain view.
NOTE.—No schoolroom should should ever be without a thermometer.
5. Four rows of seats occupy the middle of the room—seats of the same size in a row. The teacher’s table and chair are in a corner in front of the row of largest seats.
6. A table for primary classes is seen in the front part of the room.
7. Book-cases fill up the corners at the rear of the room; a table for the dictionary and other large books is seen at the rear of the room.
8. The stronger light is admitted from the left side through four large windows. The weaker light is admitted from the rear through two windows. This plan has a very strong endorsement based on hygienic grounds. It is at least one of the best. The windows reach to a point as near the ceiling as possible. They reach down to within 3 1/2 feet of the floor.
NOTE.—All schoolhouse windows should have good curtains that roll up and down readily. Beware of ragged curtains or shutters that admit the light in streaks. The children’s eyes must be saved.
9. There is an abundance of blackboard surface in the front part of the room where the blackboard ought to be.
10. There are separate cloakrooms for boys and girls, without which a schoolhouse should never be built.
11. There is a shop or workroom where the sawing, planing and much of the other sloyd carpentry can be carried on; where supplies can be stored and apparatus made.
12. The common hall offers opportunity for the removal of wraps and for passing to and fro without interfering with the private cloakrooms. This hall is abundantly lighted by large transoms over the four doors leading into it.
13. The porch is of great value.
14. The water buckets are placed on the porch in su6mmer time and in a corner of the hall in freezing weather.
15. Every school should be supplied with a wash basin, soap dish, soap and towels.
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*If the use of single seats is contemplated the size of the schoolroom had better be a little larger than figure 3 shows, say 23×27—making outside measurements 25×36. Single seats are of course preferable.
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W.F. HACKNEY, CHAS. A. SMITH — ARCHTS. KANSAS CITY. MO.
[figure 4, illustration: the flue is demonstrated to draw in air, denoted by arrows, from the foundation beneath the schoolroom and upward to be deposited outside; a large window and bookcase occupy either side of the flue symmetrically inside the school, and the stove in the corner has a pipe which leads directly along the wall into the flue]
SECTION
FIGURE 4.
[figure 5, illustration: the outside of the school is shown for its windows, doors, and porch, flanked by trees and bushes and with a rippling flag perched atop a bell tower at the front gable; the chimney sits atop an adjacent gable]
PERSPECTIVE
A PRACTICAL AND ECONOMICAL ONE ROOM SCHOOL HOUSE FOR A RURAL SCHOOL
26×36 measurement. Cost, $600.
FIGURE 5.
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W.F. HACKNEY, CHAS. A. SMITH — ARCHTS. KANSAS CITY. MO.
[figure 6, illustration: a similar image to figure 5 is shown, but at a different angle where not as many of the windows can be seen, but the porch is more directly in view]
FRONT VIEW
A PRACTICAL AND ECONOMICAL ONE ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE FOR A RURAL SCHOOL
26×36 outside measurement. Cost, $600.
FIGURE 6.
FIGURE 4, 5 AND 6.
Figure 4 is given to show the position of the stove, rear windows, book-cases, and the direction of the air currents which furnish the heat and ventilation.
Figures 5 and 6 present views of the schoolhouse from different directions.
But the earnest inquiry of many an anxious school board is:
“What are we to do?”
“Our schoolhouse is well built and cost us $600. It will stand 20 years. What can we do to make it healthful, comfortable and convenient?”
For answer see figures 7 and 8 on next page.
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[figure 7, blueprint: in one large schoolroom where a stove resides in the middle, benches are shown to surround it on all sides while a single column of desks at both the left and right walls, which are lined in windows, are facing the front where a platform and teacher’s table reside; a key below defines how each of these pieces are labeled; a dotted line spans from one wall of windows to the other and is labeled “H” to “K”]
ANTIQUATED SPECIMEN OF ONE-ROOM SCHOOL HOUSE
FIGURE 7.
[figure 8, blueprint: a common hall and cloak room containing wash buckets, wood boxes, and a chimney along the opposite wall from the front door leads through another door into the main schoolroom where rows of desks all face the teacher’s table and primary pupil’s table, and the stove resides in the back, in the opposite corner to a book case, while windows line their two adjacent walls; a key below defines how each of these pieces are labeled]
THE ANTIQUATED SPECIMEN TRANSFORMED AT SMALL EXPENSE
FIGURE 8.
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TO TRANSFORM THE ANTIQUATED, UNHYGIENIC, UNCOMFORTABLE, INCONVENIENT SCHOOLHOUSE INTO ONE THAT IS BEAUTIFUL, COMFORTABLE AND CONVENIENT.
1. From figure 7 remove platform.
2. On dotted line H. K. build a partition.
3. Remove chimney to place shown in figure 8.
4. Remove stove to corner shown in figure 8.
5. Enclose stove in sheet-iron jacket as in figure 8.
6. Provide for ventilation.
7. Remove windows 5, 6 and 7 from positions shown in figure 7 to positions shown in figure 8.
8. Repair and complete blackboard.
9. Rearrange seats as shown in figure 8.
This work may cost $100; but think of the results.
Keep these two pictures in mind.
1. BADLY ARRANGED SCHOOLHOUSE. Results: Colds, headaches, catarrh, ear trouble, eye trouble, lung trouble and other bodily ailments, accompanied by “arrested mental development.”
2. HYGIENIC AND CONVENIENT SCHOOLHOUSE. Results: Greater comfort, better health, purer blood, better physical frame, more of bodily and mental vigor, better work, better sentiment, better and happier boys and girls.
NOTE.—The money saved by using an unhygienic schoolhouse goes for medicine and doctors’ bills. Money put into a hygienic schoolhouse is a permanent investment with guaranteed annual dividends.
[photo: a schoolhouse much like the exemplary illustrations and blueprints with neatly-arranged desks in front of windows, a bookcase, and a stove in the corner]
INTERIOR VIEW OF SPOEDE SCHOOL.
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[photo: the outside of a schoolhouse looking exactly like the illustration of figure 5, save for not as many lush trees and shown at a slightly different angle]
EXTERIOR VIEW OF SPOEDE SCHOOL.
THE SPOEDE SCHOOLHOUSE.
THE BEST RURAL SCHOOL BUILDING IN MISSOURI.
The last two preceding pictures are photographic views of the Spoede schoolhouse located five miles west of Clayton, St. Louis county. This I believe to be the best country schoolhouse ever built in the State. The floor plans are identical with those given on page 4 of this report; but, as will be seen in the subjoined statement, this building is very much larger than is needed in an ordinary country school district. Buildings on this plan can easily be made with a width of twenty-six feet, a length of thirty-six feet, and a height of ceiling twelve feet, for six hundred dollars; but the people of the Spoede district have seen fit to put about double that sum into the building and then to seat and equip it with furniture costing about double the sum ordinarily paid for school furniture. This schoolhouse was completed about December 30, 1897. I am informed that with zero weather and an ordinary fire the coldest place found in the schoolroom was at about 65 Fahrenheit and the warmest place 70. Pure air is admitted underneath the stove, makes the circuit of the room, passes underneath the floor through eight floor registers and escapes through the ventilation flue by the side of the smoke flue. The picture shows
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the flue at the south end of the building. There is a second flue of the same size at the north end of the building but this second flue is entirely needless and not in use.
I am under obligation to Mr. A. A. Deschamps, teacher of the school, for the following statistics, which I take pleasure in publishing:
1. Size of lot, 147×146 feet.
2. Value of lot, $150.
3. Outside measurement of schoolhouse: length, 44 1/2 feet; width, 36 1/2 feet.
4. Inside measurement of school room, 29×35 feet; cloakrooms, 7 1/2×8 feet; shop or workroom, 7 1/2×12 feet; height of ceiling in schoolroom, 14 feet.
5. All studding and rafters, 2×6 inches; building lined with inch lumber placed diagonally under weather-boarding; plastering, agatite cement.
6. Cost of foundation, flues and all mason’s work, $118.50.
7. Number of bricks in each flue, 1,750; cost of each flue, $20.
8. Cost of plastering, $124.
9. Cost of painting, $92.
10. Cost of iron jacket for stove, $5.
11. Cost of guttering, stove jacket and pipes, $45.
12. Cost of seats (50 in number) and other furniture (seats and desks being single and adjustable so that each desk can be raised or lowered without changing the seat), $214.60.
13. Total cost of building and all fixtures, including slate black boards, seats, desks, stove, jacket, etc., etc., $1,492.60.