The high school of Denver has a lot large enough to deserve the name of park. But the city of London probably affords the most remarkable example of liberality in providing air space and playground for common schools.

(8) Gymnasium. Every city school-house of any considerable size should have its gymnasium, which may be in the main building or in a separate building. It need not be very large; once and one-half the size of a school room might perhaps be taken as the minimum size. Perhaps none of our city schools has been more satisfactorily provided with gymnastic accommodation than the Hartford high school, which for more than thirty years has enjoyed the advantages of a good gymnasium with all the needed appurtenances and apparatus.

(9) Water closets. If in a detached building, this building should be connected with the school-house by a covered passage. If they are in the basement, arrangements should be made for daily flushing. I have known the plan of dry earth closets in the basement to be tried in several instances with bad results and the flushing plan with good results. In Vienna I visited an elementary school where each school room had its urinal, which was kept in excellent condition.

(10) Entries and corridors must be spacious relatively to the stairs, especially at the foot of the latter. In large houses a width of ten or twelve feet is required. They should be lighted directly from out of doors when possible and the lights should be placed at opposite ends (end lighting not important in buildings of the court type), so as to insure a free, natural ventilation, which on many days of the year, even in winter, is the best for entries. It is hard to ventilate entries that occupy the centre of schools. Of this the Boston girls' high school offers an instance. The doors of the rooms stand open in study time, so that the whole house gets an equable foul atmosphere at about 70° to 74°, and when recess comes the girls, in large groups, stroll about these hot entries unvisited by a breath of fresh air.

(11) Stairs and stairways. Of these Dr. D. F. Lincoln, in his report on school architecture, says:

They should be fire proof, by which I mean that they should, if possible, be isolated by solid brick walls on, at least three sides. Like the entries, they must be lighted from the outside. There must be at least two staircases for a building of the size contemplated here, and some architects will consider three necessary. The width must be at least six feet in the upper story and eight in the lower, and regard must be had that the height of the steps is not too great for children. Spiral stairs are inadmissible, for the steps are very narrow next the well, and if the child falls the descent is very steep at that point. Wedge shaped stairs are inadmissible, for the same reason, in turning a corner; they are common in private houses, but dangerous when crowded. Wells are undesirable on this account, although they have a certain advantage in ventilating the entries. If they are used the staircases are to be sheathed. Balusters are totally unnecessary. The rail should be about four feet above the riser. A staircase which ascends the height of a story without a break is not desirable; one or two landings (half-whole landings is the technical term) should be introduced to afford momentary resting place.

(12) Assembly hall. To New York without doubt belongs the credit of having taken the lead in demonstrating the utility and in developing the capabilities of the assembly hall as a feature of our school architecture. From the first it has been considered in New York not a mere luxury, to be dispensed with at pleasure, but a necessity. If not a ne cessity it is certainly a very desirable feature. The following from the pen of an eminent French educator shows how the use of the hall im pressed the mind of a competent foreign judge:

After realizing the true function of the American school, it becomes apparent that a large hall or assembly room, designed for general reunions, is really indispensable in an educational system like that of the United States. Nothing is more beautiful and nothing, I am persuaded, exerts a better influence than these grand reunions of children, brought about with a dignity and soberness of manner natural to the Americans when they form themselves into an assembly. To appreciate their effects it is only necessary to see the children of a large school assemble in the hall. They enter step by step, marching in time, generally to the music of a piano, large and small, by classes, in the most perfect order, without any one, either the largest or the smallest, showing the slightest inclination to laugh, to look lightly upon the ceremony, to affect those forward airs which are too apt to distinguish boys of from fifteen to eighteen years of age among us, to say nothing of girls of the same age. Whether the reunion in the hall lasts five minutes or an hour, whether it is an assembly for prayer, for singing, for examination, or for some other purpose, the attitude of the scholars is the same; and we have nothing in our pedagogical organization which is productive of the same results. It is not only discipline, it is reflection; it is a moment, no matter how short, that leaves its mark on character; it gives unity to the school and moulds the whole of the children into a common life. These children, of different age and sex, are affected by this single and short interview in a wonderful manner, difficult to be described. The youngest among them learn from instinct and from the example of those older than themselves respect, steadiness of character, seriousness of manner, an idea of the greatness of the school, and, I am almost ready to say, of the holiness of the place. The oldest engage in the exercises of the youngest. You will see them mark time, go through the prescribed forms for gaining their places, get up and sit down at a given signal, perform conscientiously and without smiling the various gymnastic and calisthenic movements, and defile in a military way in front of the platform, young gentlemen and young ladies, with an air at once serious and good humored. Then there comes a beautiful piece of sacred music, a national hymn, or a school song. The moral effect of all this is immense; it unites all these young hearts in a common love of country, which is a very important matter in the political and moral education of the future citizens of the United States.

It is on this account that it is nowhere a question as to the propriety of these grand assembly rooms in large school buildings, although strangers, seeing them nearly always empty, are tempted to consider them useless.

SOME PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS OF FOREIGN SCHOOL-HOUSES.

(1) The fireplace in the school room. This feature is, perhaps, pecul iar to England.

(2) A feature of the French city school-house is the préau couvert (covered playground), which generally consists of a good sized but not high studded hall on the lower floor. Here the scholars, on coming to school in the morning, deposit their lunch baskets, head coverings, and outer garments. It is furnished with movable benches. Here the

pupils pass the recess in inclement weather, under the surveillance of teachers, and here those who do not go home pass the intermission between the sessions.

(3) The schools in Germany and Austria are usually provided with gymnasiums, either in the school buildings or in detached buildings. (4) The school-house on the continent, as a rule, comprises apartments for the dwelling of the principal.

(5) It is universally the custom in Europe to provide apartments for the dwelling of a janitor in school-houses large enough to require the services of such an employé.

(6) All the school-houses I visited in Vienna had stone stairs, and I believe this is a feature of all the school-houses in that city.

SCHOOL MUSEUMS.

Agassiz, in his efforts for the promotion of instruction in natural history, was accustomed to reiterate the saying "I hope the time will come when every primary school will have its little museum of natural history." But some time before the great naturalist coined this happy saying the same idea, in a more comprehensive sense, was already embodied in our pedagogical literature.

In 1832, Mr. A. Bronson Alcott wrote:

To do full justice to the young mind, our school rooms should become museums, imaging forth the variety and beauty of the material and mental world. By such arrangement juvenile interests would be secured, curiosity and inquiry incited, and intellectual attainment and vigor result. The child would feel himself in the presence of objects analogous to the outward sphere, and imbibe the inspiring influence.(Proceedings of American Institute of Instruction, Vol. II, page 142.)

There we find the idea of the school museum presented in its widest scope; it is not limited to any department of knowledge, but comprises not only specimens of natural history, but productions of art, illustrations of materials in process of manufacture, specimen products of agriculture, miniature implements of all sorts, models and pictures of historic monuments, portraits, coins, &c. The school museum, in this broad sense, is the necessary concomitant of the intuitive method of teaching. Accordingly, where the latter has gained a foothold, we find the idea of the school museum more or less developed. Incipient school museums are now to be found in individual schools of different grades in all sections of the country. In the better class of primary schools it is not uncommon to find a modest cabinet filled with specimens of natural history and sundry miscellaneous curiosities, collected by the enterprising teacher with the assistance of her pupils. Along the seashore shells are apt to form the largest part of the collection; in other localities minerals are most conspicuous. Not a few high schools possess collections of considerable value, especially in the department of natural history.

In grammar schools less progress seems to have been made in this

10153-No. 1--12

direction than in the grades above and below. There are now in the market excellent sets of minerals, systematically arranged and labelled, especially adapted for use in these schools. In one of the fine common schools of Vienna I saw installed in a good sized room a beautiful museum of technology and of natural history. Each school in the city was allowed from the public treasury a certain sum annually to be expended for its museum at the discretion of the master. As yet no provision of this sort appears to have been made in our city systems to encourage and aid the teachers in this line of progress. It is especially desirable that the grammar schools should be provided with a technological mu seum, more or less extensive. The nature of such a museum is described in connection with the account of the Tournefort school at Paris. In providing a school with a museum, it is the first step that is the diffi cult one. A beginning once made and a place of instalment secured, the collection is sure to grow in size and interest and usefulness.

DECORATION OF SCHOOL ROOMS AND ART FOR SCHOOLS.

Closely allied in purpose and utility with the idea of the school museum is the idea of the decoration of the school room. This idea is rapidly becoming general. City school rooms totally destitute of objects intended for decoration are perhaps exceptional. We find almost everywhere that the most naked and unadorned have at least a plant in the window, a picture on the wall, or a decorative drawing on the blackboard. The profusion of plants in some primary school rooms gives them the air of a conservatory. In visiting the schools of Pittsburgh several years ago I was greatly charmed with the taste everywhere displayed by the teachers in the decoration of their school rooms with plants and flowers.

Nearly twenty years ago New York set an example in the decoration of school halls with numerous busts and engravings. Subsequently a committee was appointed by the educational department of the Social Science Association to consider and report on the subject of the decoration of school rooms, with a view of introducing an æsthetic element into the educational system of the United States. The immediate result of this movement was the decoration of the hall of the girls' high school-house in Boston, which was then building, with a selection of casts from antique sculpture and statuary. The expense of the purchase, transportation, and placing of the casts was met by the subscriptions of a few members of the association, with the aid of some persons not members, on condition that the hall should be finished at the expense of the city with special reference to the plan of decoration which had been decided upon. For a series of slabs from the frieze of the Parthenon an architrave was constructed resting on Doric pilasters. Between these pilasters the walls were painted of a color suitable as a background and brackets or pedestals of proper form were provided for the busts and statues. Casts, if selected to express the highest laws

of form and the purest types of beauty, could hardly fail to produce a favorable effect upon the mental and moral training of the young, especially if associated with their studies; that is, their daily efforts to improve themselves. The collection was not made for a single school or for a single city, but for every school and every town or village where a similar attempt to extend the culture and beautify the environments of our educational system is possible. (For a descriptive list of the casts, the place of purchase, and a statement of the cost of each, see Appendix E, page 206.) The theory of æsthetic culture in schools, upon which this plan of decoration was based, is essentially the same as that propounded and so ably advocated by M. Ravaisson, of France, under whose direction a series of magnificent phototypes of antique sculpture and statuary have been prepared for the decoration of schools.

If the school room is adorned with works of art the pupils' ideas are associated with things of beauty as well as utility. Ruskin, in speaking of the decoration of the school room with busts and paintings, says:

How can we sufficiently estimate the effect on the noble mind of a youth, at the time when the world opens to him, of having faithful and touching representations put before him of the acts and presences of great men; how many resolutions which might alter and exalt the whole course of his after life, when in some dreamy twilight he met through his own tears the fixed eyes of those shadows of the great dead, unescapable and calm, piercing to his soul, or fancied that their lips moved in dread reproof or soundless exhortation.

Falling upon this fine passage of Ruskin, at once so poetic in conception and so sound in doctrine, I was naturally reminded of a striking example of the realization of the idea it recommends-the most striking example perhaps which has come under my observation — namely, the decoration of a remarkable Jesuit school of the highest order, which I visited some years ago in the city of Paris. Everywhere in this great establishment, which is shut in from the outside world by high walls even more effectually than Girard College, were decorative representations in sculpture, paintings, engravings, and sun pictures of men and deeds, calculated to inspire the pupils with the spirit of the institution and stimulate them to the utmost efforts for the attainment of the objects which it proposes. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to say that this example is rendered especially important by the fact of the well known success of the Jesuit schools in determining the character of their pupils.

It is remarkable that in the country where such an example was found in a private establishment and in a country so eminent for its cultivation of art in all its departments almost nothing had then been done through the agency of the common schools to promote by the indirect means under consideration the moral and æsthetic culture of the masses of the people. Since that time, however, a very important movement has been made on this line of improvement. At the suggestion of M. Buisson, director of primary education, the minister of public instruc