ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATES. (These illustrations follow page 162.) PLATE 1. The Crossroads School, Macon County, Ill. 2. 4, Manual training under difficulties; B, Forest school students at work in the lath house in the Raja Yogi School, Point Loma, Cal. 3. Domestic science, rural school in Louisiana. 4. Industrial work in Virginia colored schools. 5. A, B, Model 1; front and rear views; C, Model 5; front and side view. 6. Interior views of Models 1 and 2. 7. Model 3; side and interior views. 8. Model 5; interior view and basement plan. 9. A, Model 6; B, C, Model 4; front view, and rear view showing windows. 10. Model 6; pergola and oper-air theater. 11. A, A South Carolina rural school; B, Blackberry-Holmberg School, District No. 1, Itasca County, Minn. 12. Views of rural school at Cocoanut Grove, Fla. 13. A, Masonville District No. 13, Yamhill, Oreg.; B, High Hill School, Darlington County, S. C. 14. A, Rural school at Marbury, Ala.; B, Comet School, Isle of Wight County, Va. 15. A, District No. 10, Boulder County, Colo.; B, Logansport, W. Va. 16. A, District 28, Mower County, Minn.; B, Los Padillas, Bernalillo County, N. Mex. 17. A, District 31, Boulder County, Colo.; B, Potter County, Pa. 18. A, Rural schoolhouse on the plains; B, Lack of simplicity mars the effect of an otherwise attractive building. 19. 4, Model rural school, Coryell County, Tex.; B, The new Willow District, Mendocino County, Cal. 20. A, Model rural school, Kirksville, Mo.; B, Machinery in basement. 21-23. Views of the Crossroads School, Macon County, III. 24-25. District No. 9, Canandaigua, N. Y. 26. A, A rural school playground; B, Method of lighting. 27. A, B, Types of Alaska schools. 28. A, School at Chogiung, western Alaska; B, One-room school in Minnesota altered into a teacher's cottage. 29-32. Views of Porter School, Adair County, Mo., showing steps in the remodeling of an old school building. 33-35. Views of the Silas Willard School, Galesburg, Ill. 36. A, Cache-la-poudre consolidated school, Colorado; B, Washoe community school, Payette, Idaho. 37. 4, Teacher's cottage, Richland County, S. C.; B, Schoolboys in Washington State transforming an old schoolhouse into a modern cottage for the teacher. 38. Teacher's cottages: A, Missouri; B, South Carolina. 39. Teacher's cottage, Washington State. 40. 4, Sketch for a model rural school; B, Climax High School, Pittsylvania County, Va. 41. A recently patented device for indoor toilets in rural schools or residences. 42. A rural school privy. 43. Drinking fountain attached to pump. 44. How well water may be contaminated. FIGURES. FIG. 1. Front elevation, Model 2. 2. Rear elevation, Model 2.. 3. Floor plan of one-teacher school, Model 2. 4. Suggested basement for Model 2.. 5. Sketch of one-teacher school, designed by J. L. Sibley. 6. Floor plan, Model No. 4. Two-teacher school... 7. Basement plan, Model No. 4. Two-teacher school.. 8. Rear elevation, rural school designed by J. L. Sibley. 9. Main-floor plan, Model 6... 10. Basement plan, Model 6.. 11. Floor plan, one-teacher rural school, York County, S. C. 12. Rearranged floor plan of building shown in figure 11.. 13. Floor plan of model one-room school, showing seat room. J. H. Felt & Co., Kansas City, Mo., architects.. 14. Floor plan of a typical old school building. 15. Front and side elevation, one-room school, Hobart & Cheney, architects, San Francisco, Cal.... 16. Floor plan of one-room school, Hobart & Cheney, architects, San Francisco, Cal... 17. Floor plan, Crossroads School, Macon County, Ill. 18. Basement plan, Crossroads School, Macon, County, Ill 19. Floor plan of No. 9, Canandaigua, N. Y 20. Main-floor plan, Silas Willard School.. 21. Basement plan, Silas Willard School. 22. Attic and roof plan, Silas Willard School. 23. Floor plan, school at Cocoanut Grove, Fla.. 24. Plan of one-teacher rural school, designed by J. L. Sibley. 101 102 103 104 106 25. Floor plan for one-teacher rural school of minimum cost 108 26. Two-teacher rural school; connected by pergola... 109 27. Basement plan of two-teacher rural school.. 109 28. Floor plan, three-teacher consolidated rural school with open-air assembly and classroom.. 110 29. Basement plan of three-teacher building shown in figure 28 110 30. Two-teacher rural school... 111 31. Basement plan, model rural school, Kirksville, Mo... 112 32. First-floor plan, model rural school, Kirksville, Mo.. 113 33. Attic plan, model rural school, Kirksville, Mo. 34. Reconstructed floor plan for an old school building.. 114 116 35. Same plan as figure 34, with better division of floor space 118 36. Country school grounds, showing farm of 5 acres. 123 37. Cross section of drinking fountain attached to pump. 134 38. Well, incased with glazed sewer tile. 136 39. Form of dry privy recommended by Virginia State department of public instruction... 141 40. Boys' double toilet, with partition between the seats.. 143 41. Dry toilet with pit.. 144 42 and 43. Dry toilet with pit, and open-air urinal trough 146 44. Dry toilet with buckets... 45. Section drawing of privy shown in figure 44. 147 148 46 and 47. Forms of the L. R. S. privy.. 150 48. Section through concrete tanks and seat; L. R. S. method. 151 49. Vertical section of tank and house. Kentucky sanitary privy.. 152 50. Horizontal section, Kentucky sanitary privy. 153 51. Vertical section, Kentucky sanitary privy. 153 52, 53, 54. Septic tank. Sewage-disposal plant for single residences and country schools 156 VI LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, SIR: Among the greatest needs of the rural schools of the United States is that of better houses. Most of the older houses are cheap, ugly, uncomfortable, insanitary, badly ventilated, poorly heated and lighted, with no conveniences for school work, and with inadequate and filthy toilets and privies, or with none. In many places abandoned churches and cabins no longer fit for use as homes are given over to the schools, somewhat as outgrown, outworn, and cast-off clothing is given to paupers. Since the beginning of the recent revival of interest in rural schools millions of dollars have been expended annually for country schoolhouses, and expenditures for this purpose have grown larger from year to year. Some of the newer buildings are large and relatively costly, but many, probably most, of them are built with little or no reference to architectural appearance, to the local needs, or to the principles of sanitation and the health requirements of growing children. Schoolhouses are not only the temples which we erect to the god of childhood; they are also the homes of our children for a large part of the day through the most plastic years of their lives, the years in which they are most responsive to impressions of beauty or of ugliness, and when their environment is, therefore, most important. These houses should, therefore, be planned and built not only with the feeling of reverence with which all temples and other sacred buildings are erected, but also with that care for health, comfort, and convenience which we exercise in the building of our homes. It is economic waste of the worst type to spend annually hundreds of millions of dollars in money for schools and hundreds of millions more in the time of children and then fail of the best results because of bad construction and poor equipment of schoohouses. It is worse than economic waste to destroy the health and lives of children through failure to observe simple and well-known sanitary laws. The places to which children come to gain preparation and strength for life and its duties should not prove to be hotbeds for the seeds of disease and death. The school improvement leagues of the Southern States have taken for their motto "For our schools: Health, Comfort, and Beauty.' This might well become the motto for all who have to do with the planning and building of schoolhouses. Within the last twenty-five years there has been a remarkable improvement in the school buildings of cities and large towns and in the buildings for county and township high schools. Many of these now approach the ideal. A bulletin of this bureau, American Schoolhouses, issued in 1910, has had a wide circulation and has proved very helpful to school boards and architects. The eagerness with which it was received, and the continued requests which come to this office for it, indicate both the need and demand for it. There has been an even greater need for similar help for school officials and others responsible for the building of schoolhouses of one, two, three, or four rooms in rural communities. To give this help the manuscript transmitted herewith has been prepared by Dr. Fletcher B. Dresslar, special agent of the Bureau of Education and professor in the George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tenn., with the cooperation of the joint committee of the National Council of Education and the American Medical Association on health problems in education, which committee accepted the material of this manuscript and submitted it as its report to the National Education Association at its meeting in Salt Lake City on July 7, 1913. The manuscript is the result of careful and prolonged study of rural school architecture with constant reference to economy and the highest degree of utility. I recommend that it be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education. Respectfully submitted. The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. P. P. CLAXTON, Commissioner. |