Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/758

 73i COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. should be furnished with seats, and a part covered, in order to protect the children from inclemency of weather. 1535. General Arrangement of the Schoolroom. Tlic schoolroom should be a paral- lelogram, the length about twice the breadth. The height of the walls should be pro- portioned to the length of the room, and may be varied from eleven to nineteen feet. They should be worked fair, and lime-whitened, in order to give a neat and clean appear- ance, reflect light, and contribute to the preservation of health. There should be a con- siderable number of windows, each of which should be fixed in a wooden frame, and movable upon pins or pivots in the centre, so that, by drawing the upper part into the room, the lower part may project outwards, so as to admit air above and below ; by which means the school may be sufficiently ventilated in hot weather. The lower parts of the windows should be at least six feet from the floor, in order that the light may not be inconvenient, and the wall be at liberty for the boards or placards containing the reading- lessons, &c., which are attached to it : if piers or buttresses are required, they should be on the outside of the wall. P"ig. 1382 is a plan of a Lancasterian school for 304 children. It is sixty-two feet six inches long, and thirty-four feet wide, inside measure. It contains nineteen forms, a, for holding sixteen children each ; and with a desk, b, to each form. Tht-re is a platform at one end, c ; a desk for the master, d ; and twent3'-eight semi- circles, e, for small classes of nine children each. The situation of the monitor-general is at/"; of the monitor of the writing classes at g ; and of the monitors of inspection at h. The diameter of the semicircles is four feet, and the passage between the wall and the forms five feet ; i i are two doors opening into the adjoining road or street ; and k, a door opening into the play-ground. The roof should be slated on boards, in order to prevent the reverberation of sound which is frequently occasioned by plastered ceilings. When this reverberation takes place, it may always be checked by suspending pieces of baize from the ceiling, from one side of the room to the other ; and these may be so festooned as to form an agreeable drapery. Openings, with sliding covers for ventilation, should be formed under the eaves. All projections in the walls, as well as pillars to support the roof, ought to be avoided ; for they interfere with the arrangement of the school, and obstruct the view of the master and of visiters. If pillars are necessary, they should be placed at each end of the desks, but never in the middle of the room. The floor may be paved with bricks or tiles, or prepared with a mixture of clay, slacked lime, and scales of iron from a smith's forge. The earth being previously levelled and conso- lidated by a heavy roller, or by ramming, the mixture should be applied, and well beaten down. Wooden or stone floors are objectionable, on account of the noise they produce by the trampling of the feet. 1536. A good Flooring may be formed of Roman cement, cast into flags, and jointed with the same material ; it is perfectly dry and durable, and emits but little sound. 1537. In order that all the Children may he conipletelg seen hy the Master, it is of great importance that the floor should be an inclined plane, rising one foot in twenty from the master's desk, to the upper end of the room, where the highest or eighth class is situated. At the lower end is the platform, elevated, in proportion to the length of the room, from two to three feet. The length and breadth of the platform must be in proportion to the size of the room. The centre of the platform is the place for the master's desk ; and on each side there may be a small desk for the principal monitors. 1538. The Entrance-door should be on the side of the platform, in order that visiters, on entering the school, may have a commanding view of all the children at once. 1539. The School may be icurmed, whatever may be its size, by means of one or two stoves placed at the extremities of the apartment. But the most uniform temperature is obtained by steam or hot water, when conducted along the lower parts of the room, through pipes ; or by heated air conveyed into the room through tubes communicating with a stove, which is siuTounded by a close casing of iron, having a suflficient space for a ciu-rent of fresh air to be brought in through a tube : the current of air coming in contact with the stove, and the outside of the flue, or iron chimney, which passes through the casing, is heated, and may be discharged into the room by means of iron pipes. This method has been found to answer extremely well. 1540. 77*6 Forms and Desks occupy the middle of the room, a passage being left between the ends of the forms and the wall, five or six feet broad, where the children form semicircles for reading. 1541. The For7ns and Desks must be fixed firmly in the ground ; the legs or supports should be six inches broad and two inches thick : but cast-iron legs are preferable, as they support the desk-board with equal firmness, occupy less room, and have a mucli neater appearance : their number, of course, will be in proportion to the length of the forms. A form twenty feet long will require five ; and they must be so placed, that flic supports of the forms may not be innnediately opposite to those of the desks. 'I'he corners of the desks and forms are to be made round, in order that the children may not hurt themselves.