SCHOOL BUILDINGS SCHOOL GROUNDS AND THEIR IMPROVEMENT KANSAS 1911 School Buildings, School Grounds, and Their Improvement. ^ 5- KANSAS, 1911. ISSUED BY E. T. FAIRCHILD, State Superintendent Public Instruction. STATE PRINTING OFFICE, TOPEKA, 1911. **w V 4 4 This little book is dedicated to the youth of our state. To the boys and girls whose lives and characters are vitally affected not by books alone, but also by the kind and nature of their surroundings. Schoolhouses com- modious and architecturally beautiful, properly lighted, scientifically heated, and sanitary in all their appoint- ments are a source of public profit. An interior ar- ranged with regard to comfort and beauty is a daily lesson in right living. Well kept grounds beautified with trees and shrubbery yield a return in higher standards. The whole means better, cleaner, and more desirable citizenship. SCHOOL BUILDINGS, SCHOOL GROUNDS, AND THEIR IMPROVEMENT. A MODEL RURAL SCHOOL BUILDING. School Grounds and Schoolhouse Architecture. INTRODUCTION. Many requests have come to this department from rural and village communities for information and suggestions relative to the construction of school buildings. The frequency of these inquiries is sufficient excuse for the present attempt to offer some advice and to give some illustrations based upon the con- clusions of modern architects, and of those school authorities who have given much study to this important subject. However, a still stronger reason for the present attempt lies in the great number of school buildings in this state that repre- sent no effort to comply with the modern demand for either architectural effect or economic or sanitary needs. The old type of the box schoolroom is, unhappily, too familiar to us all. The wonderful improvement that has taken place in public buildings in general, and in the homes of our land, finds but little counterpart in the average school. A trip through the rural districts of the state will convince the most doubting that the average schoolhouse and its grounds are bare, harsh, cheerless and unattractive. The child naturally loves the beautiful. In childhood the mind is impressionable and, whether it is realized or not, the discomforts, lack of harmony and beauty in the average school building unconsciously make a deep and lasting impression on his mind, tending to low ideals, and especially to the lack of care for the property of others. Many farmhouses of to-day are models of comfort and beauty. The buildings are often surrounded by orchards, well-kept groves, neat shrubbery and flower beds in the dooryards. Surely the time has arrived when the people of Kansas should interest themselves in school environment, and by well-directed efforts afford an opportunity to the child to study the beauties of nature at first hand. LOCATION. "In selecting a site for a school building, the questions of drainage, convenience, beauty of surroundings and accessi- bility should have prime consideration. Select, if possible, some plat of ground slightly elevated, that the surface may be properly drained and kept as free as possible from mud. It should be specially seen that water may not stand under the (3) 4 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. building, and, if the elevation is not sufficient, by proper filling in beneath the building this trouble should be overcome. The location should be as nearly as possible central with reference to the pupils of the district, but other things should also be considered. It is better that some pupils should be put to a slight disadvantage than that attractiveness of surroundings, remoteness from environments likely to interfere with the work of the school, or other essentials, should be sacrificed." The north or west sides of the road are preferable for the school site as a protecting border of trees in each case can be planted on those sides without obstructing the front view. This will also afford the advantage of a south or east frontage. A large, substantial building in Douglas county in a fine location. When rebuilding, why not look for a location as favorable as this? THE WATER SUPPLY. The purity of the water supply for school is no less im- portant from the standpoint of health than that of the air supply. The greatest danger lies in the use of water taken from wells that are used only a portion of the year. Such water is certain to become stagnant. In the autumn before the term commences special care should be taken to pump all water out of the well and to clean the same if necessary; thereby much sickness may be avoided. The well, of course, should be so located as to avoid any contamination owing to vaults or drains. To insure against surface water a well should be located on high ground and earth should always be filled in around the well sufficient to insure drainage away from it. The well School Buildings and Grounds. b? o K o n CJ fD r c+ H M> o 3 M fD W > 6 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. should be cemented over at the top to keep out waste water, insects and other small animals. The drilled or driven well is much more sanitary than the dug well and best for rural schools for the reason that such a well does not require cleaning. Its water is in less danger of being contaminated by surface water and by organic matter. While such a well ordinarily does not supply so much water as a dug well a rural school does not require very much water. Every school should make ample provision for an abundant supply of fresh water. The law is clear that it is the duty of school officers to provide all necessary appendages. A good well on the school grounds is as necessary as desks or black- boards. SIZE AND ADAPTATION OF GROUNDS. In this great state, where land is so plentiful, the school grounds should be large enough for separate playgrounds for boys and girls. It is a source of regret that when land was cheap in Kansas the necessity for large playgrounds was not recog- nized. The growing demand for teaching gardening and for outdoor experiments in elementary agriculture, for healthful and well-directed play, and for school grounds that shall be models of horticultural effect, makes ample ground space a necessity. For this purpose the school grounds should contain at least three acres, and five acres would not be too much. While the cities are cramped for playgrounds and purchase them only at a high cost, they can be secured in the country in sufficient size and at relatively small expense. It should be kept constantly in mind that the school grounds are to be adapted for play, that they should afford a protection from winds and that they should also be attractive. They should also be adapted for school gardening and experiments in agriculture. For the purpose of play the breadth should ex- ceed the depth where there are separate grounds for boys and girls. Where the playground is large, the building should be centrally located with relation to the size of the grounds and should be situated well toward the front. This will provide two fair-sized and well-proportioned playgrounds. Where the grounds are small and contain but one acre, utility must yield to symmetry and the building should be located well to the front and to one side, so as to leave one well-arranged play- ground. They should afford room for a variety of school games. They should especially be supplied with such apparatus as pupils can construct with tools and a workbench. It is not too much to expect rural school grounds to be equipped for playing basket ball, to be provided with a turning pole, swing, teeter board and other simple apparatus. A sand pile will interest primary pupils. Where school is maintained eight months or more a School Buildings and Grounds. Shi ■p. "Oft •5 <3 4I« *<30e B State Superintendent of Public Instruction. <^3siJ^^ School Buildings and Grounds. 9 plat of ground should also be set aside for teaching and illus- trating gardening and experiments in agriculture, and this should be protected from trespassers. This plat is to illustrate merely what the pupils are to carry out at home on a large scale. It is not very practical in rural districts to keep up the school garden through the summer. BEAUTIFYING THE GROUNDS. "It is a poor type of school nowadays that has not a good playground attached." — Theodore Roosevelt. The spirit of loyalty to one's school should always find ex- pression in pride in the school grounds, in a readiness to beautify them, and in assistance in caring for them. There is really no excuse for leaving the school lot desolate even in our far western districts. Something may be done to plant a shrub or a few hardy plants, and with proper care trees can be started in every district in the state. In the central and eastern parts of the state it is simply a matter of choice. Arbor Day is a splendid time to begin the pleasant task of improving the school grounds. Ample playgrounds are essential to that vigorous health without which the mind cannot be alert and vigorous in its grasp of truth, yet on every school ground is room for the planting of flowers, of trees and of shrubs. The grounds should be cozy, homelike and attractive. In general, trees should be planted near the edge of the school grounds so that almost the entire space will be left for play- grounds. With a view also to avoiding the obstruction of light they should not be nearer the building than fifty or sixty feet. The grounds will consist of an open space fringed with wooded sides and should be an artistic picture and not merely a collec- tion of trees and bushes. Trees and shrubbery present a better effect if they are not set out in straight lines as in the nursery. They should be irregularly arranged and should consist of a somewhat compact mass of trees and shrubbery of varying sizes and styles of growth. The portion of the school grounds in front of the schoolhouse may be reserved as a lawn with low shrubbery appropriately placed. The side next to the highway should contain but little planting. A front fence spoils valuable school-ground space and almost invariably detracts from the appearance. Two walks should lead diagonally toward the two front corners, instead of a single walk. At appropriate places perennial flowers that bloom early may be planted. Early flowering perennials, such as crocuses and irises, should be planted in protected places in front of the schoolhouse. An appropriate place in the rear can be found for goldenrod and a bunch of hollyhocks, the wooded corners may be rounded out with shrub- bery, and the heavy border of trees relieved. 10 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. *^\ '4>'" ~^a-„-:. ' : ^- — ~: ,•-' ' yg gflfci- ■— ~*»^-xj§ ji 11 w ^ IPi^*^* \- ij Ink '"*' ioir jSL" ^ - J BmMMmMi."il.lllliH!!l— - • 4S^AIi w^BL^ &^TM ^>^||L.-^^p^j|L-35yg IP 'B BJr x\lF Miaj ^Bs \^s H . ■- JpSB^HMJi A departure from the box type is this attractive Douglas county school building. Not only the building, but even the lawn, fence and well-trimmed trees give assurance that the school interests of this district are well looked after. In selecting trees and shrubbery the adaptability to climate is of first importance. In most localities in eastern Kansas a large variety of trees will grow. The cottonwood was a good pioneer tree for quick growth, but it is no longer preferable for school grounds. As large a number of species as possible is advisable in order that a knowledge of trees may be acquired. In eastern Kansas among the trees that will thrive well and be well adapted to school grounds are such trees as the elm, the hackberry, sugar maple and the tulip tree. In western Kansas the conditions for growing trees are not so favorable and the number of species will be fewer. The black locust is probably the most successful, and for growth on high, dry soil, Professor Dickens recommends the red and white elm, hackberry, Russian mulberry and Russian olive. Among the shrubbery he recommends the lilac, snowball, Philadelphus and spirea for growth except in trying localities. The list of hardy shrubs, in fact, is very extensive and they are so well known that it is superfluous to mention them. Trees should be planted much closer than will be desired at full growth. Is it too much to hope that, instead of the deserted looking spot called the school ground, there may be substituted in Kansas nearly 8000 attractive little parks ; and instead of the plain, cheerless, unsanitary box called a schoolhouse, there may be substituted as many cozy, cheerful, artistic little palaces where there is embodied in attractiveness as much as possible of all that is contained in that endearing word, home. School Buildings and Grounds, 11 A well wooded ground, and a place for pleasant memories. The trees would Interfere less with light and play if they had been planted nearer the edge. "How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood When fond recollection presents them to view !" 12 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. "There is no bit of ground where beauty is more appropriate, where it will extend a wider and more constant blessing, and where it is more easily obtained. "There are ferns for shady corners; there are many varieties of tall goldenrod that, bending in September breezes, will beckon the children back to school as to a golden way to knowledge; there are quantities of sumac which, put in clumps against the building or the high back fence, will change an ugly barrier into a gorgeous screen; there are vines that ask only for a chance to climb lovingly over the doors and windows; there are little trees only waiting for an opportunity to spread their roots in the school yard and grow great there, entering tirelessly into the games of a ceaseless procession of scampering children, receiving into their arms the boys and accepting the confidences of the whispering girls and making for all when the sun is high a beautiful, welcome shade. There are violets and snowdrops that are eager to play hide and seek in the school yard in the early spring days, and in some parts of the state there are wild roses to bloom in June and lend their sweetness for all the summer in the school. "Since we can so easily make the school yard beautiful, a little oasis in the lives of ourselves and of those who are to follow us, and since it is fun to do it — going out into the woods and fields for what we want — let us resolve that next fall there shall not be a single barren school yard in all the rural districts of the state." A pamphlet on Tree Culture, with suggestions concerning school grounds, can be secured from the State Agricultural College, at Manhattan. Why not designate a planting and improvement day for the school and invite the patrons of the district to participate in planting trees and shrubs and in a general improvement of the school buildings and school grounds? Arbor Day would be an appropriate time. IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOL GROUNDS. By Prof. Albert Dickens, Professor of Horticulture, State Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kan. [As to what to plant, when to plant, how to plant and how to care for them, the following will be found most helpful. The suggestions in this article should be carried out on the many neglected school grounds of the state.] This sermon on school-ground improvement is one that I have tried to preach for some time. In my judgment, it is the most important and the most difficult of any of the problems in civic improvement. The average country cemetery is sorrowfully neglected, as a rule, but its treatment is careful and generous compared with the school grounds of the average country district. Some day we shall realize that all these factors of environment are formative influences, and shall not wonder that the character formed in surroundings devoid of beauty has hard, coarse and cruel lines in its make-up. It is an easy matter to picture an ideal country school — its clean-swept walk to the road, its ample playground, its windbreak of evergreens, its groups of hard- and soft-wood species, borders of shrubs and beds of bulbs for early spring and perennials for summer and fall. But to get it— to find some way to overcome the serious obstacles — is worthy the attention of statesmen and club women. Nearly every district has made an attempt. That is one of the hard things to forget — one of the reasons so many districts fear to try again. They had a spasm of civic righteousness — an Arbor Day revival — and every patron dug a hole in the hard, dry ground, every child brought a tree — some with few roots, some carried a couple of miles with the roots School Buildings and Grounds. 13 exposed to sun and wind — and then they were planted and, in some cases, watered for the summer; and the days grew warm and the weeds grew high, and the next fall the two or three trees alive were not noticed when the director went over, the Friday before school opened, with his mower; and so ended that attempt at a school yard beautiful. It ought to be possible to convince the patrons of every district that a single acre of land is not sufficient ground upon which to grow big, bright, broad-minded boys and girls; that two, or three, or four acres of land, well planned as to baseball diamond, basket-ball court and a good, free run for dare-base and pull-away, are giving the state and the world better results than though they were devoted to corn and alfalfa. This, I believe, is the first problem of great magnitude — to get the ground — and it must be' considered. Children must play. The noon hour, when they eat for five minutes and play fifty-five minutes, is all-important in a child's life. SENECA PUBLIC SCHOOL. For many years flowers have beautified these grounds. Note how the ground slopes away from the building. The ground can be bought for a given price per acre. The state may condemn it, but the state cannot mandamus trees to grow or shrubs to flower. Happy the district that can contract with some good tree grower to plant and care for its grounds; can fix the responsibility for soil prep- aration and cultivation. These are the chief factors in success with trees. In every district in the state, if the soil is thoroughly prepared and the trees in good condition, well set and well cultivated, they will succeed. Not always, nor all of them; but a fair measure of success will be se- cured. With the ground secured, who is to do the work? Thorough prepara- tion means more than digging a hole in the sod. It means a series of deep plowings with frequent cultivation, and then deeper plowing and a heavy harrowing to firm the soil. It is a much more difficult matter to grow trees in small groups in sod than in a shelter belt or windbreak sufficiently large to allow the use of horse tools in soil preparation and cultivation. Where the big bluestem grass grows naturally it is a simple matter to get soil ready for trees. The large roots have left humus in the soil to a considerable depth, and there is a reservoir for subsoil moisture. Where buffalo grass alone is found, a few years of cropping with deep-rooted plants is necessary: Corn or cane, followed by cowpeas, or perhaps alfalfa in rows, well cultivated for a few years; this, with a few loads of well-rotted manure well worked in, will give a soil in which 14 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. trees will grow. To have this work done in the proper way and at the proper time is the problem. In some localities it will require one-half day's work with a team ten or fifteen times during the season. No one can foresee just when the conditions will be right for the work. Any good farmer in the locality knows when the work should be done. The prob- lem is to find the man with the "know-how" to do it or see that it is done. Volunteer work is sometimes efficient, but it must be well directed and systematized. Some districts have considered the plan of a Saturday afternoon each week at the schoolhouse — a week-end party — when the trees shall be cultivated and hoed, the flowers weeded, and after that a ball game, or other sports. In the ideal neighborhood it might work well. In others, the big boys might forget the hoes, though never the bats. But in any plan it is necessary that some one be in authority to decide when to cultivate, and when it is inadvisable to work the soil. To be effective, the work must be organized. A plan for the planting should be made and recorded, showing the location of walks, windbreaks, groups of trees, shrubbery, borders and playground limits. The list of species to be planted should be well considered, and the method of securing trees de- cided. Whether they come from the neighboring woods, from near-by plantations or distant nursery, they must be secured in good season for planting. When the soil is in good condition, fall planting may be done, but the combination of eold weather and dry air is a trying one for transplanted trees, and spring planting is somewhat safer. But it should be done early in order that the root growth may begin before the buds swell. If large trees are set, they should be pruned quite severely, and even young trees are usually stronger for having been cut back. With soil in good condi- tion, the other requisites for setting are holes of sufficient size to allow roots their natural spread, and deep enough that the tree may stand a little deeper in the soil than it was previous to transplanting; and the ground must be well firmed about the roots. If at all dry, a good wetting of the soil when the hole is two-thirds or three-fourths full is advisable, and after the water settles fill in the upper layer with drier soil. The surface must be kept well pulverized all the time to prevent the soil about the roots from becoming dry; and there have been seasons when it was necessary to water newly set trees during spring and summer in order to insure their success. If watering is necessary, it should be given in con- siderable quantity at considerable intervals, usually not oftener than once in two or three weeks, and the soil should be thoroughly wet. A little water applied frequently is liable to do more harm than good. After watering, the surface must be pulverized in order to prevent the soil pack- ing. In forming good trees, the ideal to be kept in mind is that of a straight central trunk, with the branches well distributed along the trunk. To secure a tree that approaches this ideal requires frequent observation and but little heavy cutting — a twig cut away during the first season will obviate the use of the saw a few years later, and it is difficult to reform trees that have been neglected a few years. The grower must, of course, remember that leaves are necessary for any growth, and severe pruning is to be avoided. . In selecting species, the adaptability to location and soil is of first im- portance. In most localities in the eastern half of Kansas the list may be a long one. In any new planting, some of the quick-growing species should be mixed with slower and harder-wooded sorts, and in time be cut away, leaving the more valuable trees to occupy the ground. Of these pioneer trees, the cottonwood is good. Carolina poplar and Norway pop- lar are often preferred, because as nursery trees they are grown from cuttings from staminate-flowered trees and the cotton nuisance is avoided. A little care in selecting cottonwood will secure the same result. Soft maple is another of the quick-growing species, but the old wood becomes brittle and breaks badly in exposed situations. Golden willow makes quick growth and adds to the winter landscape the charm of the bright yellow of the bark. Such slow-growing trees as walnut and the oaks may School Buildings and Grounds. 15 be planted in alternate rows, if rows are spaced six to eight feet apart. As large a number of species as possible is advisable, in order that a knowledge of trees may be acquired. In eastern Kansas, thirty to fifty species may be expected to succeed, including two ash, three elm, six or eight oaks, hickory, walnut, mulberry, black cherry, catalpa, sycamore, coffee bean, redbud, honey locust, and the pines (Austrian, Scotch, Pon- derosa), red cedar, and Norway, white and Colorado spruce. Such a collection would be a source of pride and satisfaction, and would almost certainly be increased as years go by. In the western half of Kansas conditions for tree growth are less favorable and the list of species will be shorter. Honey locust is probably the most useful species on high, dry soil, but green ash, the elms (both red and white) , hackberry and Russian mulberry are quite hardy, and the Russian olive is one of the small trees that endures upland conditions specially well, and with its silvery leaves helps in the matter of variety. The hardy shrubs are so numerous that a list is almost superfluous, but the lilacs and snowballs, Philadelphus, and spireas, may be grown, except in very trying localities, and there the elder- berry, sumac, lead plant and china berry may be planted with very fair chance for success. With some outlay of expense and energy, every school ground might well become a center of interest in horticulture and forestry that in years to come would, in the bettered homes and broadened men and women, re- pay each year a thousandfold all the cost of investment. A good Marshall county district schoolhouse. The surroundings would be much improved by the planting of trees and shrubbery. If your school grounds are not well fringed with trees, why not invite the whole district to observe next Arbor Day? 16 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. School Buildings and Grounds. 17 BEAUTIFYING THE SCHOOL GROUNDS. By S. W. Black. [The planting shown in the cut of the Cherokee high school on the preceding page was planned by Mr. Black. Will your district this year begin to put Mr. Black's Ideas into effect on your school grounds? If all school districts were to do so, what a wonderful transformation would be made in the appearance of the school sur- roundings throughout the state.] That the school grounds of a district reflect the sentiments of the patrons is more or less axiomatic. It is also true that it is the business of the teacher to make people want those things that will develop the esthetic side of their natures and cultivate tastes that make for civic betterment. Surround children with the beauties of tree and shrub and flower and you will beget in them a love of the good, the true and the beautiful. Admitting that it is one of the missions of the schools to arouse and foster a sentiment for the beautiful in the students (and patrons as well) , let us consider what tribute nature may be expected to pay in the way of arboreal and floral decorations. DIVISIONS OF THE STATE. Climatically, the state naturally divides itself into three more or less well-defined divisions, growing out of the mean annual rainfall, char- acter of soil, and elevation. The Eastern Division. In the eastern one-third of the state almost all of the common de- ciduous trees and shrubs, and the evergreens as well, may be grown successfully. From an experience of more than twenty years of tree planting and culture, I am convinced that it is not so much a matter of variety as it is the manner of planting and subsequent care and attention that brings success. I have seen the tulip, the coffee bean and other more of less tender trees grow and flourish like the eastern bay tree under the tender, loving care of an enthusiastic planter. Nothing could be more stately and beautiful than a thrifty-growing elm, lifting its verdant arms into the heavens and spreading its leafy branches to cover with its enticing shade a small army of school children. Varieties. — In the eastern division, then, we may plant different varieties of the oak, hickory, ash, walnut and box elder. For quick growth one may use the speciosa catalpa, the Carolina poplar and the maple. The willow, the cut-leaved weeping birch and quaking aspen are pretty and ornamental. For evergreens, the Norway spruce, the Colorado blue spruce, the juniper, the cedars, the arbor vitas and the common sorts of pines lend themselves to schemes of ornamentation as well as to mere individual examples of arboreal beauty. Of shrubs, one may plant, successfully, haws, persimmons, redbud, hazelnut, laurel, pawpaw and other wild varieties which may be dug up in the woods and transplanted, to form cozy nooks and leafy retreats on the school grounds. Over these low-growing clumps, over the wide- spreading limbs of the trees, or over a rockery prepared specially for that purpose, the wild grape, the trumpet vine or the Virginia creeper may be trailed with classic effect. For tame shrubs, we may have the flowering almond and currant, the japonica or Japan quince, the althea, the lilacs, snowballs, hydrangeas, weigelia, and the yucca. Tame vines may also be used for the above purposes. For clambering over screens and outbuildings, one may train the rambler roses, the honeysuckles, clematis paniculata and clematis -2 18 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. jockmanii. If one does not object to the trouble of taking care of the roots in winter, the Mexican morning-glory and the Madeira vines are very pretty and effective. With the exception of the last two, the above-mentioned trees, shrubs and vines are perennials, and when once well rooted and growing in a healthy and thrifty manner they may be trusted to take care of them- selves and yield their wealth of beauty and fragrance for many years, if kept free from weeds and grass. They will require pruning once a year, and if any members of the above family should become infested with worms, bugs, scales and fungi, heroic treatment with sprays, fungicides or other applications in use in orchards will be necessary. In the case of worms such as tent caterpillar, hand picking or the torch should be resorted to. How the tree planting of the builders of Kansas is now appreciated ! But this good work among rural schools is little more than begun. It may be mentioned at this point that some of the standard varie- ties of perennial roses may be used for clumps, hedges or shields with very satisfactory results. If well spaded around, pruned, and mulched with strawy manure during the winter, they will furnish a wealth of beautiful flowers during the latter part of an eight-months term of school. Hedges may be formed of California privet, barberry, or even per- ennial roses. The Jacqueminot is one of the best of these, because when once well set and thoroughly at home they will bloom twice, and some- times three times, in a season. Evergreen hedges are quite common in the Eastern states and are very stately and beautiful in effect, but they have not grown into favor in the West because they have a tendency to die up from the roots and grow ragged unless carefully sheared and tended. . , The Japan and German iris, the corn and tiger lilies, the flags and daffodils, are of very easy cultural management, and in company with the daisies, the perennial phlox and the columbine will furnish a wealth of flowers throughout the entire spring and summer season. Modern horticulture has of late years developed some magnificent School Buildings and Grounds. 19 strains of the peony. The range of color is bewildering. They are reasonably hardy, and when once established develop into great clumps of splendid blossoms, many specimens of which appear more like bou- quets than single flowers. I do not think the annuals should receive very much attention upon our rural school grounds, at least until our schoolhouses have become the civic and social centers of the districts. When the schoolhouses of the future are open throughout the year, on Sunday as well as week days, for religious meetings, men's and women's clubs, for library and literary as well as for school purposes, then may we hope that the rural school yards shall be kept as beautiful as should the city school yard be kept. In cities and small towns, where a regular janitor is employed, a hotbed may be made, and the common annuals may be grown and trans- planted into formal beds or borders. When the season has advanced sufficiently seed may be sowed in the open ground and all the old- fashioned garden flowers, as well as the new-fangled posies, may be grown in profusion, if only they receive a reasonable amount of care and attention. Where money can be spared (and not much is required), very beau- tiful effects may be secured by a generous planting of tulips, crocuses, hyacinths and narcissi. If bedded late in the fall and properly mulched with straw or leaves, they bloom in the early spring, and so gorgeous is the display of floral wealth that they never fail to call forth unstinted exclamations of praise. With the exception of crocuses and narcissi, the bulbs should be lifted late in the spring, as soon as the foliage has died down, and they should be stored in a cool, dry place until the return of fall, when they may be reset for another succession of blooms. As soon as the ground is thoroughly warmed, the bulbs of the gladiolus should be planted in beds for summer blooming. The last few years has seen a wonderful development of this splendid and deservedly popular flower. For cut flowers and interior decorations it has few equals and almost no superior. As soon as the frost is out of the ground in the springtime, sweet peas should be planted in trenches and trained on chicken-wire fencing or brush. The Middle Division. In the second or middle section of the state nearly all of the above plants may be grown, but greater care must be exercised in getting them well set and growing. If the season is at all dry it will require some watering during the summer and early fall of the first two years. This watering should be carefully done. A thorough wetting once a week is better than a small supply each day. This application of water should not be continued too late in the fall, as false growth is thus stimulated, and going into the winter in too succulent a condition the plants may be injured or even killed if the weather is severe. This work need not be very burdensome, and will be willingly and even gladly done if the proper pride and public spirit are aroused by the teacher and county superintendent. It may be that the more hardy types of the above- mentioned plants will be required in this division, but if a number of the wild types are dug up in the woods and carefully transplanted to the school grounds at the proper time, and systematically tended until a firm foothold is obtained and they are thoroughly established in the soil, little further care, more than reasonable pruning and cultivation, will be required. Remember that in this division hardier types will be required and careful nursing at the proper time. The Western Division. With the western division it is far otherwise. The long dry spells with which western Kansas is not infrequently visited makes the planting and growing of trees, shrubs and flowers more or less problematical. 20 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The black locust, the Cottonwood, the Carolina poplar, the Russian mulberry, the Bois-de-arc and the Russian willow may be reasonably depended upon if the ground is properly prepared and suitably culti- vated after each driving rain. At such times the surface crust must be thoroughly broken up and a soil mulch must be maintained. A mulch of straw or weeds is usually worth while — always, unless worms, bugs and rodents are thus harbored. Screens of heavy tarred paper or boards are useful in protecting the trunks of young trees from the scalding sun and from the hail that sometimes visits this section. If the more tender shrubs and flowers are grown at all, it will be neces- sary to resort to some method of irrigation. At Garden City parties are experimenting with a method of subirrigation which seems to hold out some hopes of success. Concrete tiles are laid below frost line and water is supplied from a bored well by windmill power. There is no serious reason why every school ground in western Kansas should not be supplied with a good well and windmill. Surface irrigation may be re- sorted to ir. that case with every hope of success. Windbreaks are an imperative necessity in this section, and they may be grown of locust or of Russian mulberry. They should consist of at least ten rows of trees deep and should receive the same careful treat- ment as above indicated. When the pride of the district has been thoroughly aroused and the tastes of the people have been duly cultivated, no trouble will be experi- enced in securing the requisite care and attention to the school grounds. When this point has been reached, a number of the more hardy trees, shrubs and flowers of the eastern section may be successfully grown in the western section, and the boys and girls of that part of the state will then be surrounded by that beauty and verdure of nature so necessary for soul growth and the development of the esthetic tastes that beget a love for the good, the beautiful and the true. SUGGESTIONS. 1. If native trees are growing on the school grounds so much the better. If it seems necessary to use less than one acre of ground, ar- rangements should be made with some farmer who has land lying con- tiguous for sufficient room for playgrounds. Children should not be permitted to play in the road except in extreme cases. 2. A club should be formed in each district whose duty it shall be to attend to the school grounds, much as cemetery associations are main- tained in some rural neighborhoods. 3. If the county superintendent is handy with the camera, and a spirit of rivalry can be aroused, much may be done to stimulate this movement by having a display of photographs in various parts of the county. The Mail and Breeze, the Topeka Capital and the Kansas Farmer will be glad to publish pictures of specially effective views, if photographs are furnished them. Brief explanatory notes will also find a welcome place in the above papers, especially if they describe successful methods of planting and culture. 4. Have children do as much of the preparation, planting and taking care of the grounds as possible. 5. Make a permanent map of the school grounds and upon it locate each tree and shrub. Names of same should be written on the edge of the map, indicated by suitable marks or numbers. 6. In your agriculture classes discuss the best methods of securing trees and shrubs, the most scientific ways of preparing the ground and setting out the same, and the most rational plans for care and culture of them. When these schemes have been well worked out in the school- room, take the students out upon the school grounds and have them put these lessons into practical operation. 7. Do not wait for Arbor Day. It may be too early or come too late for your section. Have your exercises on that day and inculcate the School Buildings and Grounds. 21 lessons, but do the work when the weather and soil are just right. Be sure that the soil is in proper tilth by preparation made sufficiently long in advance to permit settling of the ground. 8. Lay your plans during the winter. Plat your grounds on paper. Place your order with the nursery or locate the trees and shrubs in their natural habitat, and be , ready for a vigorous campaign when spring opens. LOCATION. As a rule, trees should be located on the edges of the grounds, and shrubs and low-growing plants should be arranged as a border fringing the trees thus set. Vines may be trained over trees, fences and trellises. Sometimes very pretty effects may be secured by procuring an old dead tree with many prongs and setting it in a suitable location. Over this a trumpet vine, a wild grape or a Virginia creeper may be festooned. Rocks may be piled in a rustic manner and ferns and creepers may be set in soil placed in the cracks and crevices. The effect is very striking if care is taken to give this rockery a natural appearance. It must be remembered that plants thus set are more likely to suffer from lack of moisture than if growing in a natural manner in the ground. CAUTIONS. 1. Do not hide the schoolhouse from the road by massing trees, vines and shrubs in front of it. 2. Do not set trees on the outside of the fence unless well protected. 3. Remember you do not need to know all about arboriculture and horticulture to succeed. If you have the will you will find the way. 4. Observe grounds that have been beautified, consult the ones who did the work, and diligently follow all that is best in their suggestions. Note. — The United States Department of Agriculture will furnish you bulletins that will be helpful in planning and carrying out the above work. A good building on neglected grounds. Nature unaided gave this wild, densely wooded grove, but the child looks in vain for a fine, large playground. Why not enlarge our many small, cramped playgrounds? 22 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. PLANTING PLAN FOR A RURAL SCHOOL YARD. By Chas. A. Scott, State Forester. [Here are good ideas from State Forester Chas. A. Scott as to what trees and shrubs to plant and where to plant them. His plans provide for grounds large enough for wooded picnic grounds on one side.] A planting plan for a rural school yard is not at all an easy plan to prepare and carry out to a successful execution, because of the adverse conditions to tree growth usually found on school grounds. The species of trees to be selected for such a planting will be determined entirely by the regional location of the grounds within the state. In the eastern third of the state there are seventy species of trees found growing under natural conditions; in the middle third there are fourteen native species; while in the western third there are but ten native species. In each of these zones of tree distribution there are probably as many introduced species suitable for planting as there are natives. In the eastern part of the state this gives us a wide range of species to select from, while in the western part the choice lies within narrow limits. The plan proposed here is not prepared with the idea that it is a model for any specific locality, but rather to illustrate a few points that should be kept in mind when preparing a plan. In such preparation one must have a definite purpose in mind and the plans must be arranged so as to fulfill the purpose. The district schools are beginning to give way to the consolidated schools and the consolidated schools are demanding better schoolhouses, and better-kept school yards. For consolidated schools four or five acres are none too much for a school yard, and the plan described is for a yard containing four acres. The purposes that this plan are to serve are, first, to provide picnic grounds in which the social side of school life may be developed. When the weather will permit, special programs may be given under the trees. It is very necessary in many communities that this grove be of sufficient size to accommodate neighborhood gatherings. The rural schools and the rural churches must be made the centers of rural social life and a public picnic ground is a necessity. Second, to provide protection to the schoolhouse and playgrounds. A vast majority of the country schools are located on about as bleak and barren a site as can be found within the district, and some protection during the severe winter weather is highly necessary. Third, to beautify the grounds. Assume that the school is located at the crossing of public highways and that the grounds are bounded on two sides by roads. The first point to consider is the planting along the roadsides. This is a simple matter of selecting a suitable species. The rules of landscape gardening pre- scribe that street and roadside trees must be of as nearly uniform size as possible and all of the same species. The white or American elm is the first choice for such planting, because of its hardiness and pleasing ap- pearance. Beginning at the corner of the grounds, set one of these trees every thirty-five or forty feet along either roadside, about eight feet inside the fence. The rest of the planting is divided into groups, desig- nated as groups 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Group 1 begins at the road at the southwest corner of the grounds and continues nearly the entire length north and south. This group is to com- prise the picnic grounds, and the following species may be used in mixed planting: White elm, hackberry, green ash, sycamore, maple, walnut, oaks and hickories. The trees should be spaced approximately sixteen feet apart, so that they will have room to develop full crowns. This group should be kept trimmed and free of all undergrowth until the trees have fully established themselves, and then a sod of blue grass will be per- missible. Group 2 extends along the rear on the entire north side of the grounds. School Buildings and Grounds. 23 The purpose of this group, in addition to beautifying the grounds, is that of a windbreak. With the proper arrangement of species this can be made a solid bank of foliage rising gradually from the lowest shrubs in the foreground to the top of the tallest trees in the background. There is an opportunity to use any tree desirable in this group ; in reality, it can be an arboretum in which the teacher may conduct studies in tree character- istics. The arrangement of the species should be about as follows : In the extreme background at irregular intervals plant some of the tall trees, like the cottonwood, Lombardy poplar and sycamore. Directly in front of these plant several species of the conifers. They do not grow as tall as the others, but inasmuch as they retain their foliage throughout the entire year they give density and variety of color of foliage. The Aus- trian, Scotch and white pines, the white spruce and Douglas fir are alto- gether hardy in this region, and in the extreme eastern part of the state the larch and arbor vitae grow successfully. Together with the conifers, and coming still farther into the foreground, many of our native small- sized trees can be used to a good advantage. Among these are the redbud, buckeye, red-barked dogwood and the sumac. The background of green afforded by the conifers makes a beautiful setting for the brilliant colors of the flowers and foliage of the last-named species. In the immediate foreground such flowering shrubs as the mock orange, lilacs, Forsythia, honeysuckle, barberry and spirea should be planted in profusion. A dense planting of this nature affords a wonderful protection from our winter winds and drifting snow. Group 3 is a little planting in the southeast corner of the grounds for the purpose of seclusion from full view of the roads. A few catalpa, basswood and Kentucky coffee trees underplanted with mock orange and spirea make a very tasty' group. Group 4 is to be placed in the rear of the school grounds, and species underplanted with shrubbery. Group 5 is also located in the rear, and is composed of seven conifers — tour Austrian pine in the center of the group, bordered by three Colorado blue spruce. These two groups are intended for snow traps, to catch and hold the snow that would otherwise pile up in front of the school and along the path. The success of the tree planting on the school grounds will require much hard work and earnest cooperation on the part of both the teacher and the patrons of the school. A spirit of enthusiasm for such work must be developed, and that usually by the teacher, before the work can be begun or carried on. The planting as outlined cannot be completed in a single season; in fact, it should continue through a number of seasons, so as to distribute the work and the necessary expense of the undertaking. On account of the limited space on school grounds of one acre or less the only tree planting that can be recommended is a row of trees along the roadside and two rows along the north and west sides of the grounds. The interior of the grounds must be kept free for playgrounds. The trees recommended in the above plan are altogether suitable for planting in similar locations on the smaller grounds. 24 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. PLAYGROUNDS. By H. M. Culteh, State Normal School, Emporia. The pupils, with proper tools and a workbench, can make much of the playground apparatus out of waste material about the homes. The school board could not invest money better than in providing the raw material on condition that the pupils will construct the playground apparatus. The experience acquired in constructing it is in itself as valuable as any other school exercise. The movement for more ornamental school grounds needs the en- couragement of every teacher and superintendent, as well as the coopera- tion and activity of every school officer and patron. Trees with their cool- ing shade, shrubs with their green verdure, flowers with their beautiful colors and sweet-smelling odors, grass with its velvetlike softness to the parched feet of the barefoot boy, all are silent messengers of righteous- ness. Cicero in one of his orations speaks of placing before himself the portraits of great men, thinking that they would be silent monitors, re- minding him of their great achievements and admonishing him to greater deeds of uprightness. It was the Greeks' love of beauty that led them to such a high state of civilization, and enabled them to set such a high ideal in art that it is still the standard to-day. Teeters, swings and horizontal bar, on the grounds of the Model Rural School, near Emporia, Kan. But while we are speaking of the Greeks, we must not forget that their love of beauty was joined inseparably with their games and play. It was the beautiful body, the godlike form, attained through the influence of the Olympic games, that was the inspiration for many a poem and furnished the model for many a sculptor. These marble forms adorned School Buildings and Grounds. 25 their temples and imperfect copies still ornament our public libraries and studios of art. So we, in our desire to make beautiful the surroundings of our schoolhouses, must not forget that they are for boys and girls; and that, if boys and girls are to become the highest type of men and women, they must have an opportunity to play. We must not fill the ground with trees, however beautiful, but must leave room for play and games. E*2*\'^% A giant stride for school playgrounds. Some one says (not out loud, but thinks it and acts it), "Why play? It is all right to go out of doors for fresh air and exercise, but it would be better if this exercise were expended in a way which would be of some value rather than spend it in foolish play." While this is not the spoken creed of very many persons, it is the basis of action of a great many teachers. Play is the restorer of both body and mind. It gives freedom to both and relieves the restraints of uncomfortable positions in the schoolroom and gives the mind freedom from the necessary restraint of school regulations. Seldom does the child get tired playing, and often the seeming tired boy can play just as vigorously as if he had not worked at all. The refreshing of the mind restores the seeming worn-out muscles of the body; for often we are not tired, but just seem to be tired. "Then give us room to play, room for baseball, room for tennis, room for basket ball, room for any-way ball. Don't get your trees in our way; don't build your fences on the lines, unless you give plenty of play- 26 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. ground; don't set the house in the middle of the playground, or we may throw our ball through the windows. We want room to play. If you haven't room for these games, you can at least put up some playground apparatus ; such as a swing or two, a slide, two or three teeters, a turning pole and a giant stride." The above is the unwritten and perhaps the unuttered cry of our school children. The healthy, normal child likes to play games, if con- ditions are favorable; but, if not, he will make good use of some play- ground apparatus such as is mentioned above. While every playground should have some playground apparatus, if it be nothing more than a swing, it is much more imperative that a small ground have a good supply of such material. Two teeters, two swings, a horizontal bar, a slide and a giant stride altogether do not take up much room, yet they utilize the room to great advantage; and with these things alone each one of twenty or thirty pupils may enjoy himself hugely and get healthful, vigorous exercise in a very short time. The above-men- tioned apparatus can be gotten for twenty-five dollars or less. A slide. My, what fun ! As a minimum equipment for the average playground, there should be a sand pile and blocks for the little children, one swing about ten or twelve feet high, one about fourteen or sixteen feet high, and a teeter. These can be erected for little or no expense and can be added to as opportunity offers. Two other pieces of apparatus which the children enjoy is the slide and giant stride. The slide will cost ten or fifteen dollars and the giant stride can be erected in many places for a dollar or two. The cost of the rope and pole is about all; the wheel can often be gotten for the asking at some blacksmith shop. For the giant stride, the pole must be School Buildings and Grounds. 27 of the best material and the wheel not too large. The poles for all these should be set about four feet in the ground and embedded with good con- crete. The swing poles should be stayed with wires from the top to some object, as the house or a tree. By consulting the cuts one may see how this apparatus is made. Some other things that may be of service on the playground are baskets for basket ball, a tennis court, a vaulting pole and a crossbar, a rope for climbing, sets of horseshoes for quoits, a basket ball for dodge ball, a soft ball for any-way ball, balls and bats, etc. The apparatus which should be on any particular school ground depends largely upon local conditions as to room for playground, number, size and sex of pupils, and money at the command of the teacher for this purpose. However, the money is usually forthcoming to the teacher who is alive to the possibilities of the play- ground for good or evil. When such apparatus is installed on a playground, there should be captains selected whose duty it is to see that each pupil has his turn and fair play. These captains can often be the ones who themselves are in- clined to be the most troublesome on the playground. -This position often brings them to a realization of their responsibility and they make good captains and better people of themselves. The installing of playground apparatus brings added responsibility to the teacher. It now becomes almost imperative that he be on the play- ground at recesses and noons. He cannot, at least should not, delegate all the responsibility to the captains of the playground; the teacher must be in all and over all. His influence must pervade all the play, that it may be fair. If play is unfair, if cheating, domineering and trickery are dominant on the playgrounds of our schools, we may expect these same characteristics to become prominent in business, in politics, and in the everyday affairs of life. A square deal in politics means fair play on the school grounds. THE COLORADO IDEA CONCERNING PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT. The equipment of a country or village school ground or house for the playing of healthful and attractive games is a much neglected matter. A few suggestions along that line may be of value. A turning pole for boys may be made by setting two posts in the ground, six or eight feet apart, and running a 1- or 1%-inch gas pipe through holes bored in the tops of the posts. The cost of such a piece of apparatus should be as follows, assuming that the necessary work will be done by the teachers and boys: Two posts, 4" x 4", 8 ft. long, 50 cents; one piece gas pipe, 8 ft. long, 15 cents. Teeter boards may be made by planting posts ten or twelve feet apart, and placing a pole or a rounded 6 x 6 on top of them, and then placing boards, upon which the children may teeter. Individual teeter boards may be made by placing a 2 x 8 board in the ground, and fastening the teeter board to it by means of iron braces placed on each side of the upright piece. The cost of the above apparatus would be, for several teeters: Two upright posts, 6" x 6", 5 ft. long, 93 cents ; one piece, 6" x 6", 12 ft. long, $1.22; four teeter boards, 2" x 8", 14 ft. long, $2.05. For individual teeter: One piece, 2" x 8", 16 ft. long, 56 cents— to make upright piece 4 ft. long and teeter board 12 ft. long; two iron braces and four large screws, 25 cents. A very attractive and desirable piece of apparatus may be made as follows: Secure a pole about ten or fifteen feet long. To the small end attach by the use of bolts one end of a wagon axle, spindle up. Upon the spindle place a wagon wheel, and to the wheel attach ropes, about as long as the pole. Place the big end of the pole in the ground three or four feet, and brace it from the four points of the compass. The ropes will then hang down from the wheel in such a way that the children may take hold of them, swing, jump and run around the pole. The one de- 28 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. scribed was rather inexpensive. A telephone company donated a discarded' pole, a farmer a discarded wagon wheel and axle. The only expense was that of paying a blacksmith for attaching the wheel to the pole and the cost of the ropes — about $2. It furnished one of the most attractive pieces of apparatus on the playground. , An inexpensive swing may be constructed by placing four 4 x 4's in the ground in a slanting position, two being opposite each other and meeting at the top in such a way as to form a fork. The pairs may be ten or twelve feet apart, and a pole or heavy galvanized pipe, to which swings may be attached, wired, nailed or bolted to the crotches formed by the pieces placed in the ground. The cost of this apparatus will be: Four pieces, 4" x 4", 14 ft. long, $1.25 ; one piece galvanized pipe, 3", 12 ft. long, $2.50. Boards of education could well afford to purchase one or more basket balls, and a few baseballs and bats for the boys. These things more than pay for themselves in the added interest which boys and girls who have them take in their school work. For much of the apparatus suggested above the wide-awake board of education and teacher will see opportuni- ties to use material less expensive than that suggested. And to such persons many pieces of apparatus not mentioned here will suggest them- selves to fit particular needs and opportunities. "Given a good teacher, a schoolroom constructed, heated and ventilated according to approved methods, and a healthy public sentiment in a rural school district, and the best city school cannot furnish more wholesome and stimulating environment for the education of the children of our cities, than our rural schools favored by such conditions do for the chil- dren in country districts." "The schoolroom could and should be made to serve the same purpose in training the mind to a perception of beauty in domestic arrangements that the personal example of the teacher should exercise in the matter of dress." "Children as well as older people are affected by their environments, and nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the schoolroom. The silent beauty radiating from the harmoniously tinted walls and ceilings, from beautiful decorations consisting of pictures, casts and plants, quickens and purifies the taste. Such beauty of surroundings has a subtle, silent, ethical influence which is not so much seen as felt." School Buildings and Grounds. 29 A PIONEER SOD SCHOOLHOUSE. This type of schoolhouse is now practically extinct in Kansas, although ten years ago it was not uncommon in some of the western portions of the state. A typical rural school building. 30 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. -PLAn-/'0HDinMY-HUMb5Crt oo l- BUlLDlilG- 3CALL W* School Buildings and Grounds. 31 TLACrtt»3-Dt3K- 3 3 9 3 £ PS! _U «-> -0 3 •A°DtlU EUttAL- DCf^L-MLDIAQ- •5H°Wlf\( i »0EDir\A2V£UE/\L-5Cn oo b •£Lr\°DtLt> 3CALt^M-°" A plan of remodeling the ordinary type of school building by erecting an addition to the end. 32 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. -Z\°0CL-2(JI?AL-5C/1 oo L^UOl/l(;O/i o yLaQ -02DIAACY- OTAb5Crt 00 L'OT°DtLtD- A model floor plan for a rural school building. It also represents the remodeling of the ordinary school building. This plan is recommended above all others. Be sure first of all that the interior is modern in every respect. School Buildings and Grounds. 33 MODEL RURAL SCHOOL BUILDING. This represents our standard model rural school. It also represents an ordinary school building remodeled. The public is especially cau- tioned not to permit the old-time interior arrangements in any new school building. A model exterior like the one above is a mere pre- tense if the interior arrangements are primitive. Rear view of the same building. Attention is called to the high basement, the lighting of it, and to the banking of the windows of the school room, which insures perfect lighting. -3 34 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. THE MODEL RURAL SCHOOL BUILDING. By J. EL Pelt, Architect. The plan as laid out contemplates either an entirely new building, or the ordinary rectangular plan rural school building remodeled, and is de- signed to embody all of the latest ideas pertaining to lighting, heating and ventilating. The system of lighting is what is known as the unilateral or one-side lighting, by which the light is brought from a number of windows located to the left of the pupil, and set as close to the ceiling as practicable. The high windows shown at the rear are not essential, as the proper amount of glass surface is contained in the bank of windows to the left. The heating and ventilating is accomplished in the same manner as in the most modern gravity heating plants in larger buildings — that is, the air is brought in from the outside well above the grade line. In this case it is brought through the lower window in the front gable, drops down the air shaft back of the heater, and ascends between the jacket and the heater. By means of a series of baffle plates the air is passed over the heating surface but never coming in contact with the fire, passes out above the heater and exhausts into the room, as indicated by the darts, directly toward and against the cooling surface, which is the windows on the left of the room. The upper part of the receptacle which receives this heater curves outward at the top so as to deflect the warm air into the room. As the air leaves the heater, being pure and warm it rises to the ceiling and would remain there were it not for the large ventilating flue and vent register at the bottom, which takes off the lower strata of air, allow- ing the pure warm air to fall equally all over the room. This entirely eliminates all currents and drafts and holds the temperature of the room the same in all parts. To absolutely insure an ascending current of air in the vent flue at all times there is an iron plate set vertically between the heat and vent flue just opposite where the smoke pipe enters. The heat from the smoke pipe heats this iron plate, which in turn heats the air in the vent flue, causing an upward current which pulls the air out of the schoolroom as above mentioned. The apparatus as described and laid out is practically fireproof, and much safer than stoves, as there is a double jacket between the fire and the woodwork at any point, and between these jackets is constantly pass- ing a current of air. It would be next to impossible to build a fire intense enough to set the building on fire. While this plant includes all the de- sirable features of the more elaborate and more expensive plants used in larger buildings, it has the distinct advantage of not being a patented article and can be installed without the payment of any royalties what- ever, at the same time being practical and economical. The fuel room is sufficiently large to hold fuel for at least a week, it being assumed that the janitor or person in charge can fill the same at the end of the week and do away with the dust and dirt caused by bring- ing in fuel from the outside many times during the day. The workroom is large and well lighted and heated directly from the school heater, and is separated from the main schoolroom by a rolling partition or sliding door, permitting the same to be thrown into the main schoolroom when desired. The closet adjacent is designed for the use of the teacher. This building as designed can be built of either frame or masonry, and if of frame the only masonry required would be the foundation walls and smoke and vent flues. School Buildings and Grounds. 35 THE MODEL SCHOOL BUILDING. Children are much influenced by their school surroundings. Decent schoolrooms and outbuildings are conducive to decent habits, and beauty of environment begets beauty of life. The transition is now being made from the "box style" of school architecture to the style that is sanitary, useful and attractive. The interior arrangement that keeps in view the pupil and classroom requirements is far more important than the exterior appearance. Hence school buildings should be planned from "within out" and not from "without in." The modern type of rural school, in which agriculture, domestic econ- omy and manual training are taught, requires a new type of school build- ing. A number of attempts have been made to construct school buildings adapted to the modern notion of a rural school. The new features in general include an improved system of lighting, heating and ventilation, a cloakroom, a workroom, shelves for books built into the wall, a reading table, a storage closet, and a small teacher's closet. Some of the plans are more complete and include a modern dry closet or water closet system and hot and cold water. At the model rural school at the State Normal School at Kirksville, Mo., a shower bath is provided and special equip- ment is supplied for projection apparatus. In making floor plans the usefulness of the space and the proper light- ing are to be kept chiefly in view. A modern school building is usually not so much a matter of cost as of selecting good plans. The classroom is the unit upon which the planning of the school build- ing depends. The size of the modern school building will depend upon the number of pupils to be accommodated. If the classrooms are built smaller than the standard sizes suggested, they will sooner or later be overcrowded. Due regard should be had for the fact that in the near future no teacher will be expected to have more than forty or forty-five pupils. Experience has developed the following standards for classrooms, which best assure the physical and mental welfare of the school children : 22 x 32 feet outside dimensions for the accommodation of forty pupils at single desks, and 24 x 30 or 32 feet for forty-eight pupils, the ceilings of the rooms to be 13 or 14 feet high. There is good authority for rooms 25 x 30 or 26 x 31 feet. The length will not in any case exceed 32 feet and the width 26 feet. The square type of exterior for school buildings offers the most floor space for the material used. When the width is 24 feet the ceiling should be at least 12 feet high. With an improved system of heating and ventilation the ceiling may be lower than where the heating and ventilation are attempted by means of an un jacketed stove and windows. Some of the model school buildings provide for a corner entrance and others for a front entrance. The tendency is for two cloakrooms to be provided, one for the boys and one for the girls. In attempting to secure additional room for other purposes it would seem best for economical purposes to reduce the number of cloakrooms to but one. 36 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. -. JJi.r ei_-t Arch it-eot, KAMSA5C(TV. ANOTHER TYPE OF MODEL RURAL SCHOOL. The front windows are not classroom windows. Those windows are massed together on the rear. Another view of the same building, showing the windows banked on one side. School Buildings and Grounds. 37 Dr. Thomas D. Wood says: "The country school should be, in the fundamental elements of architecture and sanitation, as good a building as there is in the community. As the cathedral, town hall, public library or capitol building represents the civic pride of a municipality, so the rural schoolhouse should represent the pride of the rural community. It should be a model of architectural adaptation to use and of sanitary excellence. It should, if possible, be a building a little better than any other building in the community, because here you have the young brought together and subject to influences either harmful or beneficial. The problem here is the care of the growing child. This building for the training of the young may be made in any community, by intelligent planning and without un- reasonable expense, a structure of genuine beauty and of continual joy and comfort." WORKROOM, STOREROOM, TEACHER'S CLOSET, AND FUEL ROOM. "We need in our common schools not merely education in book learning but also practical training for daily life and work." — Theodore Roosevelt. A workroom about 9 x 12 feet is one of the best features of the model school building. The workroom should be provided with a workbench and the common tools used by carpenters. Until tools can be purchased they usually can be borrowed from the homes of the pupils. There should be a small storeroom adjacent to the workroom to store away supplementary reading, general school supplies and apparatus, and workroom equipment. The workroom may also be used for domestic science as well as manual training, and to that end it should be equipped with a view to easy and convenient transformation from one use to the other. Folding tables, table tops supported on movable standards or supports, or hinged wall tables, can be used to transform the manual training room into a domestic science room. The storeroom and additional shelving will provide places for storing away one class of equipment while the other is in use. This room may also be used as a sewing room. It is just what is needed for performing experiments in agriculture. The modern school has so many uses for such a room that it should be a part of every new rural school building and of every remodeled school building in the state. A part of the domestic science equipment will be one or more denatured- alcohol stoves — where gas is not available — for use by the pupils in pre- paring warm food for the midday meal. A movable partition or folding doors should separate the workroom from the classroom. During the quiet work the teacher can oversee the work of both rooms at the same time, and extra seating can be provided for entertainments and other special occasions. With but little additional expense a well-lighted basement may be pro- vided for play in inclement weather. With proper construction it could also be used as the workroom and serve as a substitute for a separate workroom. For graded schools the workshop for boys and the model kitchen for girls will occupy separate rooms in the basement. A well-arranged school building will always provide a closet for the exclusive use of the teacher. The uses for such a closet are various, such as a private cloakroom, a private library, and storage for examination papers and other written or constructed school work. State Superintendent of Public Instruction. School Buildings and Grounds. 39 40 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Manual training exercises, Topeka schools. A class In drawing, Topeka high school. School Buildings and Grounds. 41 42 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The fuel room is best located at the rear of the school building or in a very tightly enclosed portion of the basement. It would be most con- venient, it is true, if it could be located near the stove as a separate por- tion of the school building. But as the coal dust would almost certainly penetrate into the adjacent rooms that plan is not advisable. USEFULNESS OF THE WORKROOM. In this article Ex-State Superintendent Stetson, of Maine, makes some good recommendations as to the equipment and use of the workroom. In every rural schoolhouse there should be a room about nine feet wide and twelve feet long, in which should be placed a small workbench and a few common tools used by carpenters. There should also be a limited supply of lumber suitable for making the implements, utensils and appa- ratus needed in the home, on the farm and in the school. The room should also be provided with a small cookstove, a few of the utensils used in the ordinary kitchen, a sewing table, and such other appa- ratus as is needed in making the plainer articles of wearing apparel. This room should be furnished by the people of the community in which the school is located. The teacher should encourage the children to make use of this work- room in constructing the material needed in the school and the home, and in preparing simple articles of food and in making some of the garments worn by the school children. It will be much better if the teacher does not attempt to be severely scientific or technical. Most of the teachers do not and many of them cannot act as expert instructors in this work, but they may give general directions and, to an extent, oversee what is done. There will always be members of the school who will have an aptitude for the things in which the teacher has no special skill. Let it be distinctly understood from the start, that the teacher is not an instructor in manual training and does not pretend to be; but that she and the children, working together, can provide many necessary articles. Many blunders will be made and some material will be wasted, but neither of these items should be discouraging. Perhaps there is no better way of learning how to do a thing than by the mistakes one makes in doing it. The knowledge and skill thus acquired develop taste, judgment, ability to meet emergencies, and at the same time stimulate originality and invention. Best of all, these activities furnish an opportunity for the children to train their hands while they are using their heads. They also develop self-reliance, independence, and love of manual labor and a desire to be physically useful in the world. A room provided with the material described above and used by intelli- gent teachers and ambitious pupils will help to give us a student body that will be industrious, enterprising, skillful, self-supporting. It will help solve not a few industrial problems and will furnish a satisfactory answer to many troublesome moral and intellectual questions. It will help to keep the boys and girls in school and aid them in becoming in- telligent and worthy citizens when they leave school. There is a great opportunity for usefulness in this work, and it is sin- cerely hoped that parents, school officials and teachers will appreciate the situation and make use of the advantages which such training will surely give. THE LIBRARY. Book shelves should be built with the building, and should be provided with glass doors that can be locked. In a one-room building the library room should not be a separate room from the main schoolroom, although in some model school, buildings the library is placed in a separate room. There are advantages in making the classroom itself the library room. The library and reading table School Buildings and Grounds. 43 placed in a well-lighted corner of the classroom, under the supervision of the teacher, will be most convenient for the pupils and will be used more. The reference books especially should be kept out of locked cases and easily- accessible to the pupils at all times. For larger schools with a large library a separate apartment becomes necessary. LIGHTING. Windows. — The common arrangement of windows on both sides of the school room is universally condemned as being injurious to the eyes. It usually requires pupils to look at blackboards with a glare of light from an adjacent window shining into their eyes. Learning physics in the laboratory, Topeka high school. Data from schools with windows arranged according to standard re- quirements indicate that insufficiency of light and improper arrangement of light, and not the amount of use of the eyes, are mainly responsible for the defective eyesight among school children. Since there is no ad- ditional expense in arranging windows properly when new buildings are erected there should be no excuse for the erection of school buildings that are improperly lighted. In planning the lighting of school buildings the south side is not desira- ble as a source of light, on account of the large amount of direct sun- light. The north side is most desirable for the banking of windows. The east side has the advantage of affording the sanitary effect of the sunshine in the morning, when it is most welcome. A west exposure for the win- dows is less desirable in this respect. The model school building requires quite a different arrangement of windows from that found in the old-fashioned schoolhouse. The authori- 44 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. ties agree that the windows should be banked or massed on one side and the seats so arranged as to let the light fall over the left shoulder of the pupil. One or two smaller windows may be placed in the rear for summer ventilation and for additional light on dark days. They will also improve the exterior appearance.. They should be located high enough to leave blackboard space beneath, where rear space must be used for blackboards. Except on dark days these windows should be covered with shades, which should be light-colored and translucent. This will protect the teacher's eyes, make the rear blackboards usable where they become necessary, and eliminate cross shadows. ,-•->.?.■• L-; ■jF""* /--f..>, : ':Zj •:~^?£ '•^PPH* -■-.:-- s-*r** i ■"-,• ■•■ ■•■:■'■'." '■■ ■ ' ..,.,>' ■ ' ' ; V .' , A chemical laboratory, Topeka high school. The other windows should begin about three and one-half feet from the floor and extend to within six inches of the ceiling, or so that the window casing will extend entirely to the ceiling. The windows should not be arched. It is better in massing windows for them to be nearer the rear then the front side of the room. The windows should be plain and should not have more than one glass in the lower sash, and small-sized glass is objectionable for the upper sash. The shadows thrown by piers are injurious to the eyesight. Hence, windows should be massed closely together and separated only by narrow mullions. The use of prism glass in the upper sash nearly doubles the light froii that part of the window and is especially desirable where the windows must be located on a short side of the room or where large window space is lacking. A good rough test of the sufficiency of light in a room is the ability to read brevier type at the darkest desk on the darkest day as rapidly as when in good open light. This paragraph is printed in brevier type. School Buildings and Grounds. 45 The authorities agree that there should not be less than one square foot of window surface for each four or five square feet of floor surface. Where the rooms are wider than 24 feet the window space should be one- fourth of the floor space unless prism glass is used for the upper sash. Window Shades. — The common way of fastening shades at the top of the window makes it impossible to exclude the lower light and retain the top light. It also interferes with ventilation by means of the top sash. If but one window shade is used it is preferable that it be attached to the bottom sash so that the shade may be raised upward, to preserve the top light as far as possible. ELLSWORTH PUBLIC SCHOOL. This is the first building erected in the state with windows banked on but one side of the rooms. It is now universally conceded that the windows should be set In straight lines, and not in curved lines as shown. For north windows the shades should be fastened only at the bottom and run upward by a cord run over a spool or pulley at the top. This plan has the advantage of cutting off the light at the bottom and ad- mitting it from the top. The top light is the best light, and should be the last light to be shut out except direct sunlight. The top light shines more directly on the work on the desks and less into the faces of the pupils. Where the sunlight is to be shut out the shades should be somewhat translucent. A plan that has given excellent results is that of using an additional translucent sun shade which cuts off the direct rays of the sun but at the same time admits the required amount of light. On a side exposed to the direct rays of the sun an additional blind fastened to the top of the upper sash will exclude the direct sunshine from the pupils, while admitting light from below. 46 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Another plan of using two shades is to attach each of them at the middle of the window casing and raise the upper shade by means of a cord and pulley. An excellent method of adjusting shades to all conditions is illustrated in the accompanying cut. The shade is suspended by cords passing over movable pulleys. It can be adjusted to any desired height, and is held in place by lateral guides. By this class of shades either the top or bottom of the window can be shaded without shading the remaining portion, and ventilation by means of the top or bottom sash will not.be interfered with. HUTCHINSON GRAMMAR SCHOOL. Light is admitted to the rooms from but one side. This is the correct method. HEATING AND VENTILATION. Air that has once been breathed is deprived of a large part of its oxygen and is charged with organic poisons and frequently with germs of diseases. Physicians are now agreed that the breathing of impure air is the principal cause of bronchial and lung diseases, while fresh air is recognized as a preventive of tuberculosis. Children should not be deprived of the invigorating stimulus of pure air, which is required for the building up of healthy bodies and sound minds. The object of ventilation is to furnish all the pupils in the room an abundance of fresh air and to prevent the accumulation of carbonic acid, organic matter and disease germs. Without any adequate system of ven- tilation, air starvation, which is more insidious and dangerous than food starvation, is enforced upon the children. A schoolroom heated by an ordinary stove is never uniformly heated. The air is heated over and over again, and there is no means of keeping the pure air from the impure air; both are withdrawn together from the room. There is also no method by which the cold air may be warmed before it reaches the children. Consequently, it reaches the children be- School Buildings and Grounds. 11 fore it reaches the stove and they become too cold. On the other hand, the children near the stove become overheated and uncomfortable, and as a result their bodies and minds are not in a condition conducive to study. Dullness and list- lessness resulting in disorder are common conse- quences. In their sweaty and overheated con- dition the pupils are rendered more liable to catch cold when they leave the room. Those farther from the stove are exposed to cold air draughts that endanger both strong and frail. Hence the modern school building also requires a modern system of heating and as a remedy furnaces in some cases have been installed in the basement of rural schol buildings. This plan is an improvement over the unjacketed stove, but has proved to be inconvenient and requires more care and skill than can ordinarily be as- sured. Such a furnace is difficult to repair, re- quires more fuel and, in short, is suited to larger buildings than those erected for rural schools. It is best adapted to buildings of five classrooms or more, where a janitor can be regularly employed to look after it. Hence an improved heating system for the rural schools should be installed in the schoolroom. There are several such systems on the mar- ket specially adapted to this purpose. In general terms these systems are designed to heat the room by indirect heat. The cool air is secured through a fresh-air intake admitting outside air near the eaves, where it is purest, and conducting it directly to the stove, where it is heated and rises, while the impure air is withdrawn from the room at the floor by means of a ventilating flue or a foul-air pipe connected with the chimney. The heat from the stovepipe creates a draft that causes the withdrawal of the foul air. These systems are scientific and more easily operated than a furnace located in the basement. They keep the temperature quite The air movement in a good system of heating and ventilation. 48 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. uniform throughout the room — a condition that cannot be credited to the common un jacketed stove. If an improved system of heating cannot be provided, the stove should be provided with a jacket, and a ventilating flue should be constructed as described under "Repairing and Remodeling Old Buildings." It will in the end be paid for in the fuel saved, not to consider the saving in doctors' bills. It is hoped that no new school building will be erected in the state that does not provide a modern system of heating and ventilation. A GOOD PLAN OF HEATING AND VENTILATING. The register should be at least 24 x 24 inches and the foul-air shaft proportionately large. The standard for schoolroom ventilation is 30 cubic feet of air per minute per pupil, or 1800 cubic feet per hour per pupil. In the improved system doors and windows are not used as a means of ventilation. The plan under the old system of ventilating by which a board is placed under the lower sash where window ventilation must be used, is not effective, as it provides an exit but no entrance for fresh air. Ventilation in this case should be secured by raising the lower sashes of a number of windows. No sash should be high enough to produce a draught. Excepting for summer ventilation the top sash should not be lowered, as the top air is somewhat purer than the lower air, and it is poor economy to heat air and send it immediately out of the room before it has been used for heating purposes. School Buildings and Grounds. 49 A vertical section of an Improved heating system. The cold-air Intake Is shown on the left and the foul-air ventilating tube on the right. -4 50 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. A modern system of heating and ventilating. SEATING. Only seats of the same size should be placed in the same row. The custom of placing the smaller seats in the front and the larger ones in the rear places high seats behind low desks, and such seats are a positive injury to the pupil. The aisles should be as wide as the conditions will admit. Those at the side and rear should be not less than thirty inches wide and those next to the blackboard should be from three and one-half to four feet wide, and the space in front should be at least five to six feet. Aisles between the seats should be at least twenty inches wide. Where the system of heat- ing and ventilation is of the improved type the admission of light will be best with the smallest pupils on the side nearest the windows. But in the unsanitary schoolroom as ordinarily heated and ventilated it is not best for the smallest pupils to occupy the seats in the coldest place near the draught from the windows. Single seats should be used. They make discipline easier, foster self- reliance, insure better application to study and offer less danger from infectious diseases. Pupils in all cases should be seated so that their feet will rest on the floor. In ordering seats much care should be taken to adapt the seats to the various sizes of pupils. At least part of the seats of each size should be adjustable, so that they may be adapted to the variation in the number of pupils of the various sizes. School Buildings and Grounds. 51 There is a demand for a convenient, simple, durable, sanitary school desk that interferes but little with sweeping; that reduces to a minimum the space that retains dust, and that completely encloses the pupil's books so as to protect them from dust. The sizes of desks range from No. 6, the smallest, to No. 1, the largest. There should be seats of all sizes excepting No. 1. In placing desks, Nos. 5 and 6 should be placed so that the distance from the edge of the top of the desk to the back of the seat behind it shall be about nine inches. For desk No. 4 this distance should be ten inches, No. 3 eleven inches, and No. 2 twelve inches. In no case should the seats face a wall in which there are windows. Elsewhere it is pointed out that they should be arranged so that the light enters only from the left side of the pupils. BLACKBOARDS. The schoolroom cannot have too much good blackboard space. Black- boards should never be placed between windows or closely adjoining them. The appropriate place is on the sides having no windows. The front and right sides are the best locations for them. Natural slate is the best material, chiefly because it is always in repair. While it is more expensive at the start, that is compensated for by its being practically indestructible. Blackboards with a shiny surface are entirely unsatisfactory. The average attempt to secure a cheap substitute for a substantial blackboard is a failure, either because of the poor choice made or because of its not being kept in repair. Such blackboards are usually out of repair in two to four years. For primary pupils the chalk trough should be only twenty-four to twenty-eight inches from the floor. For large pupils it should be about three feet from the floor. The blackboard should extend as high as the average large pupil can conveniently reach, or six and one-half feet. It is not uncommon for blackboards to be placed too high for the smaller children. The chalk trough beneath the blackboard should be constructed for convenience in removing dust and should have a substantial, hinged, open- wire cover to keep the crayon and erasers separated from the crayon dust, and for convenience in removing the chalk dust. DOORS. The doors should be provided with locks that do not at any time inter- fere with opening them from the inside, and they should swing outward. All inside doors should have rubber stop buttons so set into the woodwork as to prevent noise. WALLS. The walls should be tinted buff, light gray or a light olive green. "In making a selection, authorities should bear in mind the general rule that cool colors should be used in rooms with south and west light, and warm ones in rooms with windows north and east. Greens, olives, grays, etc., rank as cool colors; reds, terra cottas, tans and yellows as warm colors. Corridors and offices may properly be treated with stronger and more brilliant color than schoolrooms. 52 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. FRONT VIEW, MODEL RURAL SCHOOL AT WESTERN STATE NORMAL, HATS. This model school building is the first of its type to be erected in the state, and represents a long step in advance of the ordinary type of school building. "The height of room and amount of light received must regulate the depth to which the ceiling is carried down on the side walls." The window blinds should as nearly as possible have the same color as the walls. The ceiling should be nearly white. The walls should be left very slightly rough to scatter the reflection of light, but they should not be so rough as to hold dust. For the usual wooden wainscoting and baseboard a cement wains- coting and base should be substituted. They should be painted, and the color should be darker than that of the wall above. This plan has the advantage of furnishing fewer lodging places for dust and disease germs. A strip of cork mat about twelve inches wide placed above the black- board is an improvement over a picture railing at that place. It holds less dust, and by using thumb tacks pictures and all kinds of display work can be easily affixed. Instead of the usual picture molding, a harbinger of dust, metallic picture molding is concealed beneath the plastering in new buildings, and only a very narrow opening to receive picture hooks is exposed. THE ROOF. Flat roofs for two-story buildings are less expensive, more durable, and there are no exposed surfaces to catch the wind. The bell, if needed, may be located near the center of the roof on a suitable frame where it will be invisible from the ground. School Buildings and Grounds. 53 Side view, model rural school at Western State Normal, Hays. THE MODEL DISTRICT SCHOOL, HAYS, KAN. By Prin. W. S. Picken. The focus of present educational interest is the district school; at all educational gatherings its problems are prominent. Educational officials, university professors and normal school authorities are devising means for its betterment. Many theories have been advanced and the results of much investigation are recorded, but the object lesson gives most vivid proof of realized needs. In the State Normal School at Hays, Kan., these problems are being worked out in definite form. Three years ago a model district school was established here, and its success has proved the value of the experiment. Until this year it was sustained in the old Fort Hays hospital building, but in September it will be housed in a new model school building which embodies unusual conveniences. . It contains a main schoolroom, an annex for the teaching of manual training and domestic science, two cloakrooms, two closets, and two toilet rooms which are connected with a septic tank. Here will be taught, in addition to the common branches, elementary agriculture, some elements of the manual arts, and the beginnings of household science; tools, a workbench and a cooking stove with its equip- ment will be installed in the annex. Cooking and sewing will be taught to the girls and manual training to the boys. - Improvements are planned for the school grounds; a plot of about four acres is set apart for tree planting, school garden and model play- grounds. Swings, merry-go-round, turning poles and other apparatus will be added, combining healthful exercise with jolly games. The pupils plant and cultivate the school garden, study botany and learn agriculture at first hand. , , , , , . A teacher of fine ability and training is here employed to conduct a model district school on modern lines, while all teachers attending the 54 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Floor plan, model rural school at Western State Normal, Hays. Normal School are required to observe and take notes upon the work. Periodically these teacher students meet the teacher of the model school for a conference upon methods, equipment and management, and they see a district school conducted under the best conditions. Teachers from many counties visit this school to observe its equipment and methods and confer with its teacher. The contract price of the building, exclusive of the toilets and septic tank, was $1765. Many Kansas districts are financially able to duplicate these conveniences, and there is a growing sentiment that the best in educational facilities is none too good for the sons and daughters of Kansas farmers. The accompanying cuts show the floor plan, the dimensions and views of the building. School Buildings and Grounds. 55 FIRST FLOOR PLA?J COLD AIR DUCT- WATEP TANK 400.GAL SWITCH BOARD \^ GASOLINE. ENGINE MAIN PUMP Q GAS MIXER DYNAM* Q)WATER COOLER _WIRE PARTITION GYMNASIUM 12)4X23 ilR PRESSURE/ MACHINE is x]kt BASEMENT PLAN EA5T si -- Plan of the model school at the State Normal School at Kirksville, Mo, 56 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. A front view of the same model school building. A rear view of the same buildins School Buildings and Grounds. 57 This plan is better than the average. It could he easily remodeled by condensing the coatrooms and hall into one combined hall and coatroom and enlarging the library into a workroom. The rear windows should be above the top line of the blackboards. 58 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. A plan showing a system of sanitary plumbing. The old-style box schoolhouse. It is but a shell, with windows at regular intervals around it. School Buildings and Grounds. 59 Tea :r/i©»-i J>esk 1 1 I Floor plan of the same building. The light enters from both sides. The old-fashioned stove is there to roast those near it and let those by the windows shiver. There is no system of ven- tilation. 60 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Floor plan of either a model or remodeled school building for one teacher. It is both sanitary and useful. It provides a workroom easily made a part of the main room for an assembly room. The cloakroom, teacher's closet and storeroom are all very useful. The lighting, heating and ventilation are in accordance with approved standards. The rear windows above the top line of the blackboards are for use only on dark days and for summer ventilation. School Buildings and Grounds. 61 The front view of a plain, economical building, well adapted to the above floor plan for the model or remodeled school building. Cottage windows add to the exterior appearance, but these plain windows catch less dust and are better for the eyesight. 62 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. •V tayr I '/W/tA i r WWL A rear view of the same building, showing the windows banked on the left of the pupils. School Buildings and Grounds. 63 Cooks Te ac lie Desk p □ n n □ im □ □ a □ p p p p *i □ p □ en p □ □ p p p •School Tzoor*\* p p p n □ a p p o p p p pi p p p p tp ~ The same plan with the porch differently arranged. This is also an ideal plan for a new building. It combines convenience, usefulness, comfort and sanitation. 64 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. ~Bpo ks Teacher.) Desk n n an n n n n n n □ □ □ a □ □ n □ n □ ej □ ■School -room- nan □ n □ □ □ n n n n n □ n □ Verixcat T\e*i£>ld Part' ti an WORK TfOOM i Another plan of remodeling is that of building an addition to the end of the old building. Where the old building is very long the same rearrange- ment may be made by a partition across the end. School Buildings and Grounds. 65 REPAIRING AND REMODELING OLD BUILDINGS. The schoolroom should not only be kept in repair but should be made attractive and homelike in appearance. If it has the appearance of a dingy prison there should be no surprise if it is the object of attack by pencil, crayon, mud balls, knives, and even stones. If the pupils are to take good care of it and respect it, it must be made worthy of their care and respect. Painting or calcimining the walls and revarnishing or repainting the woodwork, including desks, will eliminate dinginess and untidiness. Both walls and woodwork should be kept bright and clean and the room as a whole should be made cosy, cheerful and attractive. The walls should never be papered, as it is highly unsanitary. The price of building material has become so high that it is more economical in many cases to remodel old school -buildings than to erect new ones. In Kansas remodeling is needed much more than rebuilding. The old-style box schoolhouse is so simple in plan that it yields readily to remodeling. Districts having the primitive type of one-room school- house could at moderate expense transform it into a building far better adapted to the health and convenience of pupils. For very large buildings a cloakroom, workroom, teacher's closet and storeroom may be partitioned off as shown in one of the plans for re- modeling school buildings. If the building is not large an addition can be erected on one side for a cloakroom, workroom, teacher's closet and store- room as shown in another plan for remodeling. For more complete remodeling a modern water-closet system and septic tank may also be installed as is shown in the plans for the model rural school building at the Western Normal School at Hays. The changes most needed are those of heating and lighting. The arrangement of windows should be changed by removing the windows from the right side, adding them to those already on the left side of the pupils and closing up the spaces on the right. One or two windows at most may be placed high in the rear of the room. While a new heating system of the improved style is desirable, that need not retard the improvement of the existing heating system, where a new system cannot be immediately installed. Where a better system cannot be provided, the stoves should be jacketed and a ventilating flue constructed similar to the system described under "Heating and Ventila- tion." The jacketed stove should be located in one corner of the room. Cold air should be supplied to the stove through a fresh-air intake. A ventilating pipe should extend from the floor to the chimney, or a new ventilating flue may be constructed. The stove should be sufficiently large so that it will never become necessary to heat it red hot. Large stoves give out more heat because of their larger radiating sur- face, give more uniform heat and require less attention. The jacket should be about six feet high and about eight inches from -5 66 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. A heating and ventilating system similar to this can be placed in old school buildings as well as in new ones. The fresh-air intake behind the stove is not shown. the stove, and should contain a large door for convenience in supplying fuel and sweeping the floor. This system has been shown to provide an even and comfortable temperature to the room. Directions for jacketing stoves and providing an improved system of ventilation are as follows: "The stove should be surrounded by a sheet or plate of some kind, set a few inches from the stove, so that the air between the stove and the jacket may be heated to make it rise and circulate through the room instead of scorching the faces of the youngsters who sit nearest. "This jacket may be a wooden frame covered with sheets of asbestos; it may be of tin or galvanized iron. It may be put around any stove, no matter what its size or shape, and may be done by a tinner, a carpenter, a blacksmith or any ordinary handy man. It is very greatly improved School Buildings and Grounds. 67 when a hole is cut through the wall near the stove, so as to draw in fresh air from out of doors to pass up between the stove and the jacket. This hole should be large, and should be controlled by a slide or register of some kind. "When connected with the outdoor air in this way, the jacketed stove is a ventilating as well as a heating device, bringing in fresh air, warm- ing it, and distributing it through the room. It should be balanced by providing a large outlet for foul air, at the floor level and near the stove. This foul-air outlet may be a small fireplace, or a large pipe going into the chimney and up the chimney; thus it is surrounded and heated by the smoke from the stove, which produces an upward suction in the pipe, drawing off bad air from the room below. "A number of patented devices also are manufactured for schools, using the principle of the jacketed stove. An ordinary stove with a jacket can be made to give entirely satisfactory results. The essential features are: (1) A jacket, (2) a connection between the pure outdoor air and the inside of jacket, and (3) a vent that will draw off the foul air." Before consolidation only a small one-room school was required at Rose Hill. 68 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 8 J U u m * Q a <1 ** Q ° ° § o o OS a P "2 M 3 School Buildings and Grounds. 69 SCHOOL SANITATION. The Prevention of Dust. — Too little attention is usually given to pre- venting dust from entering the schoolroom. The use of dustless crayon eliminates one source of dust, and keeping mud out of the schoolroom is better than dealing later with the dust that it creates. People do not clean mud from their shoes on entering a barn as they do on entering a parlor, and there is a close connection between the appearance of the schoolroom and the amount of dust to be inhaled by the pupils. To keep the room clean it should be turned over to the teacher and pupils in the fall as clean and attractive as the best kept home in the district, and it is only fair to insist that it be kept that way throughout the year. It is recommended that floors be thoroughly filled with boiled linseed oil applied hot and rubbed in to render them smooth and durable. A mixture of oil and paraffin has also been recommended as a floor dressing. But the use of mineral oil to saturate the floor is almost equal to dust as a nuisance. There should be an ample supply of shoe scrapers. A guard rail should be placed above them, as otherwise they are unsafe. A large steel-slatted mat should be placed outside the door in muddy weather. This style of mat is preferable because of its vertical scraping edges and its extreme flexibility. A fiber mat placed inside the door will also catch much more mud and much dust. It should be well cleaned in muddy weather after each general use. Sweeping and Dusting. — Ordinary dry sweeping with a broom, fol- lowed by dusting with a feather duster, is, from a hygienic point of view^ indefensible. It is worst when done just before school opens. But at any time it scatters fine particles of dust and germ life throughout the room, to be inhaled during the day as they are started into motion in the air by the thousands of movements. This fact becomes strongly evident when the sunbeam reveals the myriads of particles floating in such air. While this method of sweeping is injurious to pupils it is almost inhuman to janitors. While the room is being swept the windows and doors should be thrown wide open to permit the dust to escape and prevent impure air from being retained over night. The desks and woodwork should be wiped in the morning with a damp cloth or, better, one slightly moistened with kero- sene; a feather duster should not be used. The sweeping may .be done with wet sawdust and an ordinary broom or bristle brush. Sweeping preparations may be used as a substitute for sawdust. The use of a "dustless brush" is still more satisfactory. It contains an oil reservoir, out of which kerosene oil slowly spreads down a row of absorbent bristles and the flow is regulated by a screw cap. The oil flows fast enough to keep oily both the brush and the dust which it touches, but does not flow fast enough to oil the floor. The oily dust, be- ing too heavy to float in the air, is thrown along in front of the brush. The kerosene odor soon leaves the room. This form of sweeping avoids 70 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. the annoyance and danger of dust and keeps the floors in good appear- ance. While some "oil brushes" are a failure those constructed as de- scribed above give entire satisfaction. Brushes like the Milwaukee dust- less brush give entire satisfaction. Cleaning and Disinfection. — Parts of the -building on which the hands are placed most frequently, such as doorknobs, doors and tops of desks, should especially be cleaned frequently. The walls and woodwork should be kept as clean as in a well-kept home and dust should not be permitted to accumulate on them. The schoolroom should be disinfected each year before the opening of school and frequently during the prevalence of contagious diseases. The burning of sulphur candles or formaldehyde lamps according to given directions is the standard method of disinfection. As a protection against fire these lamps or candles should be placed on a brick in a wide vessel containing a little water. Sulphur cannot always be used, as it kills plants and bleaches clothing. Formaldehyde does not produce these effects. Sanitary Drinking Caps. — The State Board of Health has abolished the use of the unsanitary common drinking cup and the common drink- ing bucket. As a substitute an earthen tank or jar with a faucet operated by thumb pressure is best where sanitary drinking fountains cannot be installed. Near the water tank may be an enclosed case with individual pigeon holes for the individual drinking cups. This case may be made by the pupils in schools equipped with a workbench and tools. If there is danger of this case proving unsanitary collapsible cups kept at the pupils' desks will be preferable. A plumber can easily attach a sanitary drinking fountain to an or- dinary water cooler or tank for use in rural schools and elsewhere where there is no access to hydrant water. An elevation of but a few feet would produce the required pressure. A device of this kind would remove the inconvenience of individual drinking cups. Sanitary Drinking Fountains. — Wherever hydrant water is available the drinking fountain has replaced the drinking cup. Experience with the different varieties of drinking fountain has shown the following re- quirements to be desirable: (1) A device to increase the flow of water within a certain limit while the pupil is drinking and yet permit a mod- erate flow at all times; (2) a stream of sufficient volume of water when the jet is about two to three inches high; (3) no projection exposed so that the lips can be placed around it; (4) no cup around the jet from which it is possible to drink. Sanitary Towels. — A sanitary towel made of paper has recently been placed on the market at a moderate price, and, if experience demonstrates that it is a satisfactory towel, it will undoubtedly "he used in schools as a substitute for the ordinary unsanitary towel. The claims for it are such that it deserves to be given a trial and adopted for general use if it proves to be satisfactory. School Buildings and Grounds. 71 72 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. WATER CLOSETS. "[6427.] That the school boards and boards of education having super- vision over any school district in this state shall provide and maintain suit- able and convenient water closets for each of the schools under their charge or supervision. There shall be at least two in number, which shall be entirely separate from each other. It shall be the duty of the officers aforesaid to see that the same are kept in a neat and wholesome condition ; and failure to comply with the provisions of this act by the aforesaid officers shall be grounds for their removal from office." (Laws 1907, ch. 27, sec. 522.) Strict compliance with the above statute is absolutely essential. A matter that demands the serious attention of boards of education is the condition of the outhouses at many of our school buildings. Without argu- ing the question, we must frankly confess that the condition of these premises in many places is a disgrace to the community, and the people should rise in indignation and demand that a radical change be made at once. Where it is not possible to put in inside closets, respectable out- buildings, properly screened, should be erected, not too near the school- house, and with good walks leading therefrom. Then the teachers and the board should see that these buildings are kept scrupulously clean. As will be seen by the statute, these buildings must be entirely separate. They should be located at the remotest corners of the grounds, at a reason- able distance from the schoolhouse, and in such a manner that there will be no possible contamination of the water supply. In many localities school authorities are grossly negligent of the out- houses. Usually they are poorly planned and kept in bad condition. The effect in such cases is a positive menace to the health and morality of the school. The opening to the closets should be screened by a board shield fence about six feet in height, extending across the front and along one side. For the boys' closet there should be a galvanized iron urinal in the form of an inclined trough located within the shield fence. For the average-sized rural school there should be from three to four openings partitioned off for privacy. A board should be so placed that the pupils cannot stand upon the seats. The seats should be provided with hinged, gravity-closing lids, and the woodwork should be sufficiently tight to exclude odors from the vault; and vaults in general should be screened or tightly enclosed so as not to admit those dangerous carriers of disease germs, flies. The vault should be well ventilated by means of a large vent extending from the vault to the roof, and plenty of ventilation should also be pro- vided for the closet. The walls should be sanded to a height of six or six and a half feet to afford a poor surface for knives and pencils. The gen- eral appearance of the grounds is improved by concealing the outbuildings with vines, tall shrubbery or bushes. School Buildings and Grounds. 73 The secret of keeping closets clean is for them to be properly con- structed, inspected daily and swept and washed frequently. This is part of the janitor's duties, and if no janitor is employed some one should be paid for this service. The walls should be kept free from corrupting pictures and language. The entire building and interior especially should be kept well painted, and any defacing should be covered up at once with fresh paint and resanded. Closets without vaults or those with vaults that do not keep out water are unsatisfactory. The following is a standard type of vault : A cement- lined, water-tight excavation with a rear extension covered by a hinged lid or door for convenience in cleaning. Instead of a vault an excellent device is a stout metal-lined box rest- ing on wooden runners, so that it can be dragged away like a sled and emptied at proper intervals. The ease of keeping this type of closet clean should recommend it for general use. Both of the above types of closets require cleaning at frequent intervals, and also require disinfection. For this purpose a box of fine dry earth and a box of lime should be placed in the closet, to be applied with a shovel daily in the vault. Wood ashes are better than lime and should be used when they are available. Chloride of lime is also recommended as a disinfectant. The urinals also should frequently be disinfected with lime. It is possible to install water closets within the school building. A general plan for this is shown on another page. Water may be supplied by an air-pressure (pneumatic) tank in the basement or underground. The tank may be supplied with water by means of a pump operated by a windmill or by hand. For indoor water closets a septic tank for sewage disposal is required in rural districts and wherever there is no sewer system. The system is more expensive than outside closets, but it gives much greater satisfaction. For references concerning the construction of septic tanks, see pages 67-70, of Kansas Health Laws, published by the State Board of Health. 74 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 0) o! £*> a CS OJ g to O.U g"S 3£E ®"e 9 I*" ««« ^ So .5 a >> 0) e"5.g OS • h ftB .5 . si- ts.s 4 p *=? — the price paid being impaired eyesight, weak- ened vitality, spinal curvature, nervous trouble or some other physical defect which lessens their real value to the community and to the state. There are several factors which determine the sanitary condition of a schoolroom— the location of the building, the number of pupils accom- modated, the amount and direction of the light, the amount of fresh air 76 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. supplied to each pupil, the proper admission of this fresh air and expul- sion of the foul air. These standards demand 15 square feet of floor space and 200 cubic feet of air space as the minimum amount for each pupil, as well as 30 cubic feet of warm, fresh air per minute for each pupil. SCHOOL GROUNDS. The school site should be well back from a street, road or railroad, remote from dust and from filthy neighborhoods, swamp, marsh, or stagnant water. It should have, if possible, a southern exposure. By facing south and west not only the coveted northern light, but sunlight for the greater part of the day, is obtained. The building should be located on high ground, but not on a bleak hill, so that the ground will slope gently away from the building on all sides. The ground should not be damp, but as dry and porous as can be found. The value of sunlight to a school building cannot be overestimated. Its influence prevents dampness and is directly opposed to the culture of disease germs. It is a very valuable sanitary aid, and therefore should not be cut off by near-by trees or other objects, in order that there may be ample room for playground, proper ornamentation, etc. The site should contain not less than two acres for a one-room school and four or more acres for a larger school. This, of course, applies to rural schools. LIGHTING. Some time ago I requested a prominent eye specialist to give me his opinion as to the results of improper and insufficient light in the schools, and he replied : "Why, if it were not for the schools we specialists would have to retire from business." The weight of medical testimony as well as common observation confirms the truth of this statement. The schoolroom cannot be too well lighted. It is better to have too much window space than too little. Writers upon school hygiene uni- formly agree that the amount of transparent glass surface admitting light should be from one-fifth to one-fourth of the floor space, the exact amount depending on the location of the building, direction from which the light is admitted, size of the room, and proximity of other buildings or objects which might obstruct the light. The purpose of lighting a schoolroom is to prevent shadows from falling between the eye of the child and the object on which he must look while studying or working, and no room is properly lighted if shadows fall on the books or work of children in any part of the room. There is unanimity of opinion that light should enter from the left, as this avoids shadows. The windows should be set with the least possible space between them, in order to avoid bands of light and shadows. All windows should be placed as near the ceiling as possible, and should come no lower than three and one-half or four feet from the floor. The upper fourth of the window furnishes one-third of the light — also the best light; hence it is obvious that curtains should not be hung from the top, but from the bottom, or from the middle and bottom, and should roll upward. VENTILATION. There is no one thing connected with the economies of school life that is worth so much and costs so little as proper ventilation. There is great waste of the time arid energy of both teacher and pupil if the physical conditions upon which mental development depends are wanting. Nothing is more absolutely necessary for mental work than pure air and an abundance of it. Bad air, breathed constantly, means sluggish- ness, biliousness, headache, listlessness, inattention, lack of energy and of mental vigor, and prepares the subject for contagious and other dis- eases. It is the poorest kind of economy to deprive children of fresh air and of comfortable rooms in which to study. At no time in our lives are School Buildings and Grounds. 77 we so susceptible to disease as in our school days. The rapid growth of the child, the mental strain and the bad sanitary conditions of schools render the child particularly liable to disease. Air that is rebreathed contains less oxygen than pure air, and con- tains carbon dioxide, a negative poison much heavier than air. It also con- tains volatile organic substances exhaled from the skin and from the lungs. These latter are very poisonous, and their odor can readily be detected upon entering the room from the fresh air. The air also contains more or less solid matter in the form of minute particles of dust, which are thought to bear an important part in the propagation and distribution of the bacteria of various diseases, :.s the dust generally contains bacteria in greater or less number. In outside air the number of bacteria varies greatly, being often less than one for every sixty-one cubic inches; in well-ventilated rooms the number varies from one to twenty, while in close schoolrooms as many as 600 have been found in the same space. Our plain duty, then, is to get rid of the impure air in the schools and to supply in its stead pure, fresh air. This must be done by a proper system of ventilation. What the respiratory system is to an animal the ventilating system is to a building. An efficient ventilating system cannot be had in cold weather without the aid of a system of heating, and any system of heating is incomplete and imperfect which does not provide a proper supply of fresh air — thirty cubic feet a minute for each child. The system of heating should also provide a practical method of removing the foul air. Moreover, the air must be admitted in such a way as to avoid draughts and secure uniform distribution. This cannot be done in cold weather through any system of window ventilation. The warm air should be admitted near the ceiling and the foul air, which, contrary to the popular opinion, is heavier than the warm, fresh air, on account of the amount of carbon dioxide it contains, should be exhausted at the floor level. The outlet for this foul air should be on the same side of the room with the inlet for the fresh air. Although the same principles apply to all buildings, in schools of larger sizes competent school architects and sanitary engineers should be employed to make the plans and install the heating and ventilating plants. As the large majority of our school buildings, however, are one- room and two-room size, it is impossible for some time to come, on account of the cost, to provide such plants for them. The simplest, cheapest and most effective method of ventilating the small school is the jacketed stove. It is probably not possible to meet fully the requirements of good sanitation (thirty cubic feet of fresh air per minute) with the jacketed stove, but conditions can be greatly im- proved with it, and if the teacher, as she should do, will throw open the windows at each recess and secure a complete change of air, the results will be eminently satisfactory. If a jacketed stove cannot be secured, any ordinary stove can be surounded with a zinc or Russian jacket. This jacket should not be more than eight inches from the stove; should be fastened securely to the floor and should be four or five feet high. It should have a large door extend- ing to the floor, to afford ingress to the stove and to enable children to warm and dry their feet upon entering the school. Under the stove there should be an opening to admit fresh air. This air can be conducted from the outside of the building by an air shaft. As the cold air is admitted under the hot stove, it is confined by the jacket, is heated as it passes over the stove, rises to the ceiling and is distributed. After it is breathed it becomes heavier and settles toward the floor, and is exhausted by means of a ventilating flue. This flue should contain an opening at least 20 x 30 inches. There are several ways of providing such a flue, but it must always be so constructed as to be heated by the smoke flue. The best method is to build a chimney with two flues, separated by the thickness of one brick. 78 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The smoke flue should be 12 x 21 inches, and the other 21 x 30 inches. The heat from the smoke flue will warm the other flue sufficiently to cause a draught which will carry off the foul air. These methods can be used only in new buildings. In old buildings the following plan will be found effective: Construct a sheet-iron pipe ten or twelve inches in diameter, extending to within six inches of the floor, with a drum at the top through which the stovepipe passes. Jacket the stove and admit fresh air as above described. A very good system will be provided in this manner. The stoves, in all instances, should not be placed in the middle of the room, but at one side or in a corner. The temperature commonly accepted as proper for a schoolroom is 68° F., and it should not be allowed to rise over 70° F. Schoolrooms are ordinarily kept too warm, often 80°, and children accustomed to being in such an overheated atmosphere are unable to stand exposure without contracting colds and other diseases. OTHER SOURCES OF DANGER. There are several matters which may appear unimportant but which tend materially to spread disease. These demand the constant and thoughtful attention of the teacher. In spite of every effort to make the school healthy, and in spite of every precaution to exclude children suffer- ing from communicable diseases, such children are frequently found in the schools. The teacher should do his or her utmost to prevent such children from infecting others. Separate seats and individual books are highly important. In iddition, each child should, if possible, be provided with an individual dri iking cup, as the dangers from the school dipper are most numerous, ani such dipper has been abolished by the State Board of Health. The exchange of pencils and the like should be discounte- nanced, as it is a ready method of spreading disease. If a child which has diphtheria germs lurking in its throat puts its pencil into its mouth and then loans the pencil to another child, there is very material danger that the second child will contract diphtheria. Similar danger lies in the childish habits of exchanging chewing gum and of eating candy together. The teacher should, wherever possible, put an absolute veto on such practices. Spitting on the floor of the school should also be prohibited by the teacher. SWEEPING AND DUSTING. In sweeping a room raise as little dust as possible, because dust, when breathed in, irritates the nose and throat and often sets up catarrh. Before sweeping bare floors, sprinkle moist sawdust or some good "sweeping compound" on the floor, and use a hair brush to sweep. This insures almost complete freedom from dust, and the dissemination of in- fectious germs, if any be present on the floor. In dusting a room, do not use a feather duster or dry cloths, because these do not remove the dust from the room but only brush it into the air. Do all dusting with slightly moistened cloths and rinse them out in water when the work is finished. The precautions outlined above for safeguarding the health of the school may seem onerous. But the teacher should remember the peculiar susceptibility of the child to disease during the long school day, and should feel it his solemn duty to protect the child's health while instruct- ing its mind. The one is no less important than the other. School Buildings and Grounds. 79 GRAMMAR SCHOOL, WELLINGTON. The above building shows the proper banking of windows for unilateral lighting. A two-room school. 80 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. NEEDED EQUIPMENT FOR A SCHOOLROOM. 1. Desks to fit all sizes of children. Every row of desks the same size. 2. A neat, comfortable desk for the teacher, containing drawers that can be securely locked, and a good chair. 3. Good blackboard within reach of all the children, and plenty of it. 4. A bookcase constructed to protect the books from dust and mice, and provided with a safe lock. 5. A well-selected library of from 50 to 150 books, suitable as refer- ence books and home reading, and adapted to the pupils of all grades. Expensive reference books are of little value to most schools. The Kansas Teachers' and Pupils' Reading Circle Board has appproved a list of books suitable for rural school libraries. Publishers of textbooks have lists suitable for all schools. 6. One or more sets of supplementary first, second and third readers. A copy of the adopted textbooks for the use of the teacher. 7. There should be dictionaries such as the School Textbook Commis- sion has approved. 8. A good cheap globe, costing about two dollars. 9. A map of Kansas and where possible a county map, and a set of wall maps on rollers in a case, consisting of the hemispheres, North and South America, Europe and Asia, Africa, and the United States. The set will not cost more than fifteen dollars. 10. Two or three select pictures on the wall. 11. A box of cards containing printed words suitable for children to construct sentences when learning to read, or the Arnett Reading Chart. 12. Several packages of colored splints of various lengths. 13. A box of sewing cards, to be used as patterns. A perforating pad and needle. Six spools of silks or yarns of the standard colors. 14. Several packages of weaving mats and needles. 15. A set of dull-pointed scissors for cutting, to be used by the younger children. A few packages of colored paper for cutting. 16. Two yards of soft muslin, two spools of thread (a fine and coarser number), and a package of needles, to be used by the older pupils on Friday afternoons for the "sewing bee." Some common buttons for button sewing, etc. 17. A set of pasteboard geometric forms made by the teacher and pupils. 18. Pint, quart, gallon, peck, foot, yard and meter measures. A ther- mometer. 19. Noiseless erasers, a few rubber-tipped pointers, brooms, and dustless sweeping material, or a dustless brush, a poker, a fire shovel, a wastebasket, a wash basin, towels; and outside of the building a foot scraper and a foot broom or fiber door mat, and small wooden paddles made by pupils. School Buildings and Grounds. 81 A MODEL TWO-ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE. By L. M. Wood, Architect. The following ideas, and especially those relating to small school buildings, are deserving of special attention : In planning schoolhouses there are some things that are common to all, and some things that are essential to all, but some of which cannot be secured on account of the amount of money available. Wardrobes for the children's clothing should be put in if possible, and in all cases should be connected only with the schoolrooms, and preferably by two openings, without doors. This allows the children to march in at one opening and out at the other, taking their clothing as they go, and like- wise prevents marauders from stealing the clothing, as is sometimes done in the larger towns. No light should be taken on the right of the children, nor in front of them. Modified light in the rear may be obtained by the use of half windows, set high, which allows the blackboards to be carried entirely around the room on that side under them. Properly treated, the effect is good, architecturally, on the interior. The light in the rear may be modified by the use of double shades, one of which is hung at the top, and the other on the top of the lower sash. Where an inner room is necessary, giving opportunity to light only on the narrow side of the room, make the entire side of the room of glass, with proper care for construction, and use prismatic glass in the top sash. This has been found to be entirely satisfactory. When, as above stated, a middle room is incorporated in the plan, and it is found impossible to light the wardrobes directly through the outer wall, the solid partition between the schoolroom and the wardrobe may be left out, and a balustrade put in, three feet high, with a newell at each end extending to the ceiling, and leaving openings at each end corresponding to the door openings shown elsewhere. This gives ample light in the wardrobes, and makes it possible to seat persons there, if desired, during school meetings, when additional seats are needed. Window area should always be equal to at least one-fifth of the floor area where possible, and when otherwise should be helped out by the use of prismatic glass, as stated above. In a two-room house it is better to seat the children so that they will face in the same direction, as shown here, then with the use of flexifold partition the two rooms can be thrown together as one, and the audience be seated facing the same way. Private lockers or closets for each teacher are shown, placed between the wardrobes. These should have good locks, and be fitted with at least one shelf and half a dozen triple-ward hooks, put on with screws. These are lighted indirectly by windows facing upon the corridor, directly opposite the outer windows for that part. Provision is made for books in each room by means of a bookcase built in the corner, where shown. Exterior doors should open outward into a vestibule, as shown, so that they will be protected from violent winds. The outer openings from these have no doors, but in places where these open vestibules are found to be used by heedless ones for purposes foreign to good breeding, they can be protected by folding iron doors at a small cost. As described above, this makes a complete two-room schoolhouse, but if more room is desired a basement can be built under it, usually at a small cost additional, and thereby secure two more rooms, as shown, for use as manual-training workrooms and play rooms. These have the requisite closets and storerooms for the apparatus. In this case the coal room is placed in the basement. Stairs leading from the basement to the main floor make it convenient for children passing to and from 82 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Prittni.fic Ql at; 23.30 \^_J fir^^'-h J^XSEMENT fLAN, d£££ L This plan for a two-room school building was drawn for this bulletin by L. M. Wood, architect, by special request, to work out a combination two-room building and assembly hall and to show an economical plan of adapting the basement for workroom and playroom purposes. To provide a good assembly hall the windows must be banked on the short side of the room. The use of prismatic glass in the upper sash is re- quired to throw sufficient light to the opposite side of the room. School Buildings mid Grounds. 83 b^^m^s-^mimamsm^mmmi^mmb^^^^^^ ^ ti& ~E£ezeSB*E!K-c-no ■ftATM^fi-rimp-PiftN vai r v-iL.. •PLAN3-G. WINTCLD nCA 3O100L WMTLD- KAN3JB' d-rtTCLT-S Co-AEC/VD IV C MO GDQWTLOOE MJN- 106 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. PLAN3-E. wiNnnp-mon-xnooL- wiNriop kanoav j n rtu &.■<& Aecnrxvc-rio- PUttMl*-WlNritU> MH1 JC/100L VINT1CLD • KAM3A3 ■ .-/•/vrcur & Tinnp pi an xmati School Buildings and Grounds. 107 WINFIELD HIGH SCHOOL. This building is fireproof in every particular. The heating plant is located entirely outside the building. The floors and all partitions are of incombustible material. All corridor floors are of cement throughout. The ceiling and roof construction are made of steel and concrete. All stairways are of iron and concrete, and in addition to the ordinary hand rail there is a rail next to the wall so that pupils may protect them- selves from falling. The gymnasium is dropped below the ground floor level sufficiently to give the required height. The shower and locker rooms are reached directly from the gymnasium and athletic field. The building is equipped throughout for a vacuum cleaning system. The stairways give a clear, straight exit in a direct line. On the first floor is the superintendent's office, his reception room, the principal's office and teachers' rest room, each of which is provided with a private toilet and lavatory. The superintendent's office is pro- vided with a vault for records. The library is virtually a part of the study hall, and is at all times under the supervision of the teacher in charge. The laboratories are arranged with the lecture room between them and separated from it by glass partitions, so that the teacher may have the entire view of both laboratories while teaching in the lecture room. Each laboratory has a supply room, and the chemical laboratory has a dark room. The main auditorium seats 750. Additional toilets are placed on each floor. Drinking fountains that do not permit the lips to come in contact with the metal are also placed on each floor. The building is heated by a steam blast that provides 1800 cubic feet of fresh air per hour per pupil, and is automatically controlled so that the temperature will not vary more than two degrees in any part of the building. A FEW OF THE SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE HUTCHINSON HIGH SCHOOL. The building is absolutely fireproof, being constructed throughout of brick and reenforced concrete, even the roof being constructed ex- clusively of steel and concrete. The building has its own electric light and power plant. Not a broom, brush or duster will be used, as the building has its own vacuum cleaning system installed throughout. There is a gymnasium 44 x 78 feet with 21 feet of space to the ceiling, with an observation balcony running around the entire room. The study hall and library are together the same in size as the gymnasium, and are separated only by a glass partition with connecting doors and a window for checking out books. The auditorium, with its balcony, has a seating capacity of 800, has a stage 16 x 36 feet, and is as thoroughly equipped as any theater. Throughout the entire building the unilateral system of lighting is followed, so in every room it is possible to arrange the seating so that the lighting is always to the left of the student. The automatic clock, program, and bell system installed throughout the building makes it possible to carry on four separate school programs in any or all parts of the building without any one interfering with any other in any way. The laboratories are arranged on either side of the lecture room, with the necessary supply and cloak rooms. 108 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. mm:^$**** list EJUP- Us* W;»l US. u* School Buildings and Grounds. 109 nan ■ xrmi ■ WICrtMXN-IWDB- ■j-nrarsfe-AicnD-Kora) nerr ruxa-Htn 110 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. ■ norv xrax ■ nuTcnran • woo- dfl-m.T-S.