Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/541

 1869.] Descriptions. 437 r Ml I The building of which we have given a design is, as will be seen, intended to be constructed of timber. It is twenty- one (21) feet high, having one main en- trance through a porch, and one on the side. It has a frontage of twenty-eight (28) feet by sixty (60) feet in depth, including the front porch. The school-room itself — there being only one compartment, which could be easily divided off, if necessary — is fifty (50) feet long by nineteen and a-half (1 9i) feet broad ; and is capable of being fitted up with desks in the manner shown on the ground-plan. It may be useful here to give the dif- ferent sizes of the desks in use in school- houses, premising that they all face in one direction. What are called gram- mar-desks are the largest, being forty- two (42) inches long, thirty-two (32) inches broad, back to the back of the one in front. Secondary desks are forty (40) inches long and twenty-seven and a-half (27^) inches from back to back ; and primary desks thirty -.eight (38) inches in length, and twenty-four (24) inches from back to back. Passages have been left, twenty-two inches wide between each vow of desks. Of course, this arrangement of seats has only been given to show what could be done; but the final arrangement would depend entirely on the number of pupils and the judgment of the local authori- ties. Too much care cannot be paid to the comfort of both teachers and scholars; and every thing that can be done, should be carried out, in order to render the school-house a pleasant and desirable resort ; and not one to be shunned and dreaded, as only a necessary evil, which must be undergone, and one which it is not desirable to mitigate by any attract- ive and healthful associations. Note. — We have said above, that the design for the school-house in question is, generally speaking, Swiss, or, better, Swiss Gothic; but the angles of the roof, the porch, and the belfry are those of the Gothic. The diagonal timber-framing belongs equally to either. Structures framed on this general principle, are also common in Denmark, Sweden, and, more particularly, Norway. A glimpse of the general effect, from the force of association, has an inevitable tendency to recall the timber-framed houses of England, in the olden time ; although, in their case, the timbers were only the skeleton of the house, as to wood-work; the sides themselves being constructed of bricks, filled in between, leaving the wood exposed, flush with the brick-work, and forming a quaint kind of diagonal latticing. Yet, originally, this style belonged to Holland ; and was, indeed, by the English, imported thence, in many cases, bricks and all.