Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/786

 76S COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. or end view, fig. 1404, a. The boxes for books are of deal, two feet and a half long eighteen inches wide, and eighteen inches high. In the girls' school, the boxes are made larger, with a division for work ; or, there are two boxes to each class. The seat of the master, having a desk fixed before it, is ])rtable in both the infant and Ma- dras schools, and moves on castors, to enable the head master to station himself where he chooses ; there is also a portable bookcase, or cupboard for books and other articles not in use. 1616. The Portable Articles of Furniture are still fewer than those required in the Madras system. In IVIr. Stoat's concentric circles there is no room for boxes, and the books arc therefore kept in cupboards, either fixed or portable, placed against the walls, or in any convenient situation. The only essential portable article in Mr. Stoat's system is the medal-stand or point of reckoning, fig. 1411, unless we reckon among the articles of furniture the medals, lessons, slates, &c., common to all the four systems. This medal- stand is made of cast iron, or wood with a cast-iron base. 1617. The Articles of Furniture necessary for a Lancasterian School we have already enumerated at length, § 1543 to § 1558. 1618. All the Furniture of Schools according to the infant system may be obtained from Mr. Beilby, Chelsea; all those for the Madras system, from the central school, Baldwin's Gardens, all those for Stoat's system, from Mr. Stoat, Islington ; and all those for the Lancasterian system from the Bo- rough school. 1619. Such are the Fittings-up, Fixtures, and Furniture of common Schools, according to the preseiit'most improved prac- tice in Britain ; but, if general school education were carried to the ]wint to which we think it ought to be, and to which we trust it will be at no distant period, every parochial school would contain most of the philosophical apjiaratus and models now almost exclusively to be found in colleges and universities ; and, besides these, many of the implements, utensils, instruments, and machines necessary for the practice of the more useful arts. Our opinion is, that, when the social system comes to be better understood by the mass of society, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number is acknowledged to he the end of all government; education, like every thing else, will be com- paratively equalised, and this high and equal degree of education will be acknowledged, by all governments founded on the universal will of the governed, to be as much the birthright of every individual as food or clothing. The kind and degree of education that we think ought to be given to every human being in this, and in every other country, and in every state of civilisat'ion, may be thus defined : — All the knowledge and accomplishments that a cliild's body^ or mind, and the state of knowledge and the art of teaching at the time, will admit, previously to the age of puberty; giving i)reference to those branches of knowledge which may be considered the most useful, and those accom- plishments and manners considered the most humanising, by the wise and good ot the particular age and country. We consider this degree of cul- tivation to be as mucii the birthright of a child, in a highly civilised com- munity, as food and clothes are in the rudest state of society.
 * for a School on Stoat's Circulating System