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patterns. All the school furniture proper for teachers and pupils was manufactured at the establishment of J. L. Ross, of the best materials, and in the most workmanlike manner. The teachers' chairs and the settees for the large hall were furnished by John C. Hubbard, whose work in this line is always of the very first quality.

The method of ventilation does not differ essentially from that which has been applied to the other Grammar School-houses, excepting the Bowditch School-house. A ventiduct 16 X 16 inches in the clear, constructed of smoothly planed matched boards, is carried up from the floor of each room to the attic. Here these ventiducts are united in three groups, each group being carried up through the roof in a single shaft, which is surmounted by a 42-inch Leed's cap. Each ventiduct has two openings, which are fitted with valves, one being near the ceiling of the room from which it leads, and the other near the floor.

The building is heated by Brown's self-regulating, hot-water furnaces, which were furnished and set up by Geo. W. Walker & Co. The following description and cut, taken from the manufacturer's circular, present the essential features of this apparatus for heating. In this building there are three boilers, and to secure an equal distribution of the heating power, there is an independent stack of hotwater pipes in a separate air-chamber for each school-room.

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"This hot-water apparatus consists of a horizontal boiler B) which encloses the fire, insuring perfect safety, and precluding all possibility of any portion of the ire surface being heated above the boiling point. Over the boiler, and forming a continuation of it, is a stack of cast-iron pipes (P), arranged in horizontal convolutions, and filled, like the boiler, with water. A constant circulation of hot water is kept up through every portion of the radiating pipe, so long as the fire in the boiler is maintained.

A solid foundation of brickwork being prepared, the boiler (B) is set therein, the fire (F) being lit in the front of it, and the fire-box is made of the boiler itself, so that all the available heat produced by the combustion of the fuel is absorbed by the water. The entire apparatus being filled and the fire made, the water gradually ascends through the rising pipe (R) to the distributing pipe (D), and displaces the water in the pipes, causing it to pass into the boiler through the return pipe, (seen at bottom of boiler,) thus a continuous circulation of hot water is secured. The arrows in the cut indicate the direction of the currents.

The boiling of the water in the apparatus actuates the draft regulator. When the furnace is full of water, the bottom of a portion of the box (V) is covered with water to the depth of an inch, the box (V) is divided up to about four-fifths of its height, and a siphon connects the two compartments.

When ebullition commences, the water is thrown over the top of the partition and passes through the pipe (b) into the box (e), that contains a float which, as it rises, closes the lower valve (ƒ), (which through pipe H, supplies the draft to the fire,) and elevates the upper valve (f), in order to admit the cold air on the top of the fire and thus check the boiling. The water having ceased to boil, returns from box (e) to box (V) through the siphon. The consequent descent of the float and valves allows the draft to pass under the fire until ebullition again takes place.

Danger from fire is entirely out of the question, and as the fire is surrounded by cast iron, lined (so to speak) with water, and as the tendency of fluids, when heated, is upward, and to descend when cooled, that portion of the boiler exposed to the fire is always the coolest part of the apparatus. The stack of pipe is enclosed on either side by two walls; and the exterior air, after passing by a conduit (C) constructed for the purpose, into the space between them, and being warmed by contact with the pipes, rises through the conductors (W) and the registers into the rooms it is designed to warm. Nothing can be more wholesome, pure and refreshing than the atmosphere thus evolved. No pernicious gases are present. offensive odor is perceptible in the air warmed in this manner."

No

As an aid to proper ventilation (a subject of vital importance), this invention seems to have some important advantages. The fact that the radiating surface is at so low a temperature (below 212°), shows that a very great volume of air is required to warm an apartment sufficiently, which, when provided with means of egress, will most thoroughly ventilate by forcing out the impure atmosphere through the flues provided for the purpose.

The style of architecture resembles the Italian, with bracketed cornice, and pilasters at the intersections of the exterior and partition walls. All the wails, including the partitions, are constructed of bricks. The exterior walls are faced with pressed bricks, and buil. with a four-inch air space between the outer and inner surfaces The basement, string course, and door and window dressing are to fine hammered Rockport granite. The cornice is of wood. The roof is covered with Welsh slate, and fitted with copper gutters. The interior standing wood-work is grained in a very tasteful style.

The yard is enclosed on the three sides which are bounded by streets, by a substantial and handsome iron fence, and on the back

side by the water-closets and a brick wall. The rear portion of the yard, which is used as a play-ground, is paved with bricks; the front part is to be ornamented with trees, shrubs and flowers.

The contractors who furnished the heating apparatus and the farniture have already been named, and it is but just to record here the names of other parties who have, in various ways, contributed by their skill and taste to the construction of this great and well-built school-house. The excellence of the painting and graining is due to James Ransom; of the mason work, to Sayward and Lothrop; of the carpenter work, to Isaac C. Trowbridge; and of the slating, to C. S. Parker and Sons. Its architectural merit is due to George S. Ropes, Jr., the able architect. The adoption of the design was secured mainly through the influence of Judge Wright, of the Committee. Mr. James C. Tucker, Superintendent of Public Buildings, had the immediate supervision of its erection, - -a duty which he performed with great fidelity and good judgment. Special credit belongs to the Sub-Committee of the City Council, consisting of Alderman Davies and Councilmen C. R. McLean and N. M. Morrison, who had the entire responsibility of the execution of the work in their hands, and who spared no pains to render it satisfactory and complete in all its parts, "from turret to foundation stone."

The cost of the lot was about $8,000, and the whole cost of the building and lot, including the iron fence, the furniture and heating apparatus, was $109,585.76.

Thus has been designed and erected the largest and most costly school edifice in Boston, and perhaps in the whole country. Two of the objections to the plan of the Grammar School-houses which we have built in the course of the last year, namely, the too great height of four stories, and the imperfections of the exhibition halls, have been obviated in the plan of the Prescott School-house. To accomplish this, a larger size was adopted. Whether the future Grammar School buildings shall be constructed on this model, in respect to size, is a question for the School Board to decide.

We subjoin from Mr. Philbrick's Twelfth Semi-Annual Report as Superintendent of Public Schools, for March 1866, the following remarks on the proper size of Grammar Schools in Boston. —

After much study and many efforts, we seem to have settled some important points in building school-houses, such as the mode of seating, the providing of a separate school-room for each teacher, and the proper model of such rooms as to size, arrangements, and the essentials of the clothes-rooms connected with the school-rooms. In these particulars our more recent school-houses are as good as could be desired. In a pamphlet by G. P. Randall, an accomplished architect in Chicago, containing plans in perspective of several noble schoolhouses which have recently been erected in the Northwestern States, a document well calculated to open our eyes to the extraordinary educational enterprise of that section of the country, I find the following statement respecting the arrangements of school-rooms. "It is now pretty generally admitted by practical educators that a single room, large enough to seat from fifty to sixty-five scholars, and exclusively under the supervision and instruction of a single teacher, is better than a larger room, with recitation rooms and assistant teachers. I make designs for them both ways, but probably not more than one in fifteen with the large room and recitation rooms attached. As I am generally instructed in this matter, it follows that teachers are almost unanimous in the opinion that the single room system is the best; and it is the system adopted by the School Board of Chicago in the public schools of this city."

The origin of this system may be easily traced to the Quincy Grammar school-house, in this city, erected in 1847-48, the plans and description of which were published in Barnard's School Architecture. Another feature of this edifice as it then was, has not been so generally imitated, but which, I trust, will ultimately come to be considered an indispensable element in every Grammar School-house, namely, — a hall large enough to seat comfortably all the pupils accommodated in the several school-rooms. This is the case already in the city of New York.

But in respect to the we are still unsettled.

important elements of heating and warming, Within the past twenty years there have been three radical changes made in the mode of heating our Primary school-houses. First, the old-fashioned coal stove gave place to Clark's ventilating stove. Subsequently this stove gradually went out of use, and in its place the ordinary cylinder coal stove was substituted. Lastly, this stove has been removed and hot-air furnaces introduced. The High School buildings are heated with hot-air furnaces; and nineteen of the Grammar School buildings are heated in the same way, while two are furnished with different systems of steam-heating apparatus. For ventilation, most of the buildings have Emerson's caps, with a separate ventiduct for each room, furnished with two registers, one near the ceiling and one near the floor. Robinson's system has been applied to one Grammar and one Primary building, the Normal Hall is furnished with the Archimedean system, and the Prescott School with Leed's caps. To furnish school-rooms in large and high buildings with an abundant supply of pure air of the requisite temperature and humidity, for health and comfort, is a difficult problem. Considerable progress has been made, no doubt, towards its solution, and it is hoped that the Committee on Public Buildings will continue to experiment upon it, guided by the principles of science and the light of experience, until satisfactory results are reached.

The question as to the maximum number of stories in height to which a school-house should be carried has caused some discussion amongst us. Nearly all the Grammar school-houses are at least four stories high. Several are practically five stories in height, as they have their play-ground on a level with the basement. There can be but one argument thought of in favor of carrying school-buildings up to this great height, and that is the argument of economy. As sky costs nothing, the expense of a building four stories high is less than one of the same capacity which is two or three stories high. But a school-house is never truly economical unless it meets the requirements of health, convenience and safety. In all these respects the four-story plan is decidedly objectionable, and I earnestly hope that it will be wholly and forever repudiated. In Baltimore a large and fine building has been erected for a Girls' High School. This edifice is only to stories high. There is in the same city another building three stories high occupied by a school of the same description. This schoolhouse is considered too high, and it is proposed to build one to take its place which shall be only two stories high. In this particular the educational policy of Baltimore is certainly wiser than that of our own city, and more truly economical. Our new Primary schoolhouses are, with a single exception, three stories high, and it is to be hoped that no one will ever seriously think of carrying one to a greater height.

I have said that we seem to have arrived at a definite idea of what a school-room should be in respect to size, arrangements, proportion and seating. This is an important step gained. But what should be the standard number of rooms for a building? This is a question which has very important bearings on the interests of our schools, and it deserves the most serious consideration of the Board. In what I have to say on this topic, I do not propose to refer to High School

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