Farm Boys and GirlsMcKeever, William A. (William Arch)
Science
Farm Boys and Girls
McKeever, William A. (William Arch)
Boys; Farm life; Girls
An attractive rural schoolhouse was erected some years ago at the New
York State College of Agriculture, to serve as a suggestion
architecturally and otherwise to rural districts. It is a one-teacher
building, and yet allows for the introduction of the new methods of
teaching. It is a wooden building, with cement stucco interior, heated
with hot-air furnace, and with two water toilets attached. The total
cost was about $2000. The College writes as follows of the house:--
"The prevailing rural schoolhouse is a building in which pupils sit to
study books. It ought to be a room in which pupils do personal work with
both hands and mind. The essential feature of this new schoolhouse,
therefore, is a workroom. This room occupies one-third of the floor
space. Perhaps it would be better if it occupied two-thirds of the floor
space. If the building is large enough, however, the two kinds of work
could change places in this schoolhouse.
"The building is designed for twenty-five pupils in the main room. The
folding doors and windows in the partition enable one teacher to manage
both rooms.
"It has been the purpose to make the main part of the building about the
size of the average rural schoolhouse, and then to add the workroom as a
wing or projection. Such a room could be added to existing school
buildings; or, in districts in which the building is now too large, one
part of the room could be partitioned off as a workroom.
"It is the purpose, also, to make this building artistic, attractive,
and homelike to children, sanitary, comfortable, and durable. The
cement-plaster exterior is handsomer and warmer than wood, and on
expanded metal lath it is durable. The interior of this building is very
attractive. Nearly any rural schoolhouse can secure a water-supply and
instal toilets as part of the school building.
"The openings between schoolroom and workroom are fitted with glazed
swing sash and folding doors, so that the rooms may be used either
singly or together, as desired.
"The workroom has a bay-window facing south and filled with shelves for
plants. Slate blackboards of standard school heights fill the spaces
about the rooms between doors and windows. The building is heated by hot
air; vent flues of adequate sizes are also provided so that the rooms
are ventilated.
"On the front of the building, and adding materially to its picturesque
appearance, is a roomy veranda with simple square posts, from which
entrance is made directly into the combined vestibule and coatroom and
from this again by two doors into the schoolroom."
HELP MAKE A SCHOOL PLAY GROUND
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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