Morning journal and courier., 1881-01-12
French School Houses.
Rules on Building School Houses Just Prepared By a Commission for the French Minister of Education.

a
 French Minister of Education.
 From the American Architect
 The site for school house ought to be central, airy, easy of access, removed from every noisy, unhealthy or dangerous estab- ment, and at least 100 yards distant from ex- isting cemeteries. If the soil is not quite free from moisture, it should be drained. The areas of ground needed for school house should be reckoned at II square yards per scholar, and in no case should it be less than 566 square yards. In towns where the same building is used as town hall and school house, the rooms must be entirely separated from one another, and the school rooms must be on the ground floor. The school rooms and the covered play grounds connected one with the other should be free on at least two op- posite sides, so as to receive the utmost light and air This arrangement favorable to healthiress, has, moreover, the advantage of facilitating the surveillance of the pupils. The ground floor must be raised two feet above the ground. The ground must be so graded that rain water will flow away from the building. If it is not possible to have a cellar under the building, there must be at least air spaces
 In every group of school buildings, the boys school, the girls school and the primary school must be distinct, one from the other; but the primary school must not be placed between the other two. A school house should never contain more than 75O pupils, divided follows Boys and girls schools, 300 each; primary school 15O.
 The maximum number ofscholars in school houses of one room must not exceed 50; where there several rooms the number must not exceed 40. The floor area should be so calculated as to allow for each pupil between 1.5 and 1.7 square yards, and the capacity of each school room shall be such as to allow each pupil minimum of five cubic yards. The rooms must be rectangu- soL4s Sla .S,,I. must be adopted every time the following conditions obtain :-
 1. Possibility of obtaining suficientlight.
 ?. Proper proportion between the height of the windows and width of the room.
 3. Openings, feet inches by 6 feet inches, in the wall opposite the windows, closed by shutters, which may be used for airing the room, and for the introduction of sunlight during the absence of scholars.
 When the light comes from one side only, that side must be the one at the left of the pupils. When the foregoing conditions can not be realized recourse must be had to lighting from both sides but the strongest light must come from the left. Windows must never be cut in the wall which faces the masters table, and still less is that which fronts the scholars. Lighting from the cell ing is forbidden. Windows must be rectan- gula-. In case the room is lighted from one side only, the window-head must be at
 
 room. In any case the under side of the window lintel must be on a level with the ceiling The window sill must be cut with a slope on the inside and on the outside, and must be at least three feet eight inches from the floor Whether the rooms are lighted from one side or from several sides, by single window or by many, the dimensions of these openings must always be calculated so that they will admit light to all the desks. The mullions separating the windows must be as narrow as possible The windows must be divided into two parts. The lower part, the height of which must be equal to three fifths of the whole height, must be @ case ment window, and the upper part transom lights opening upward
 The least height for a room must be 5 feet If the light comes from side only, the height of the room must be equal to at least two-thirds of it's width plus the thickness of the wall in which the windows are placed. The ceiling must be of plaster, level and uni form On it must be traced line indicating the direction of the North pole. There must be no cornices around the top of the wall The angles formed by the conjunction of the walls with floor and ceiling must be replaced by concave surfaces. All the walls of the school rooms must be covered with some substance which will form an even, smooth surfaee-stucco or plaster, oil paint ed The best color for the wall is the gray tint of flax. Up to the height of four feet from the nOOf, 1Q QeIaulb or WOOQ WOrK, Ul6 walls should be rendered with slow setting cement.
 In mixed schools, the boys must no longer be separated from the girls by partition but they must be grouped in dinerent parts of the same room; the boys, for instance, nearest the master, and the girls behind them-a space two feet six inches separating them.
 The stoves must fulfill the following condi- tions:
 The heating surface must be proportioned to the space to be warmed, so that the aver age temperature of the room shall range be- tween 520 and 610 Each room must be pro- vided with thermometer, placed at suita- ble distance from the stove. There must be a stove for each room, or one stove may serve for two adjoining rooms. The stove must draw from the outside the air needed to support combustion andinsure proper ventila- ton. It must have a water vessel with suf- icient evaporating surface It must have double envelope of metal or terra cotta. It must be surrounded by an iron grating. It must have neither oven nor plate-warmer. It is expressly forbidden to carry the smoke-pipe obliquely above the pupils heads There must be space of four feet between the stove and the pupils When ianitor has the care of the stoves, their feed-door must be open into the passage-way. Stoves of cast-iron, in which the fire acts directly on the iron, must not be used, The smoke-pipe must be so arranged as to help the ventila- tion.
 space at least feet inches wide must be left between the front row of desks and the wall, so as to make place for the masters desk. The desks must never be less than two feet from the wall. The longitudinal passages between the desks must be at least 20 inches wide. A space of at least four inches must be left between the back of each chair and the front of the desk next behind it. 
 Bigelo.v and Hubbard. [From the Meriden Republican, | A writer in the Hartford Times ofice mas- | querading in the guise of a correspondent, | attempts to belittle Governor Bigelow by | contrasting his message with that of ex-Gov- ernor Hubbard. The writer "felt proud of l the State and it's executive" when he read any l of Governor Hubbard's messages, because | they contained ''some high-toned sentences. Ii the pride of the State and it's executive is to be measured by the amount of gilded rhetoric 1 in gubernatorial messages, this Tunes writer I has selected the wrong party to train Tn, for 1 while it contains few scholarly men like R. I D. Hubbard they are the exception. If this | writer will ask Governor Hubbard's opinion of Governor Bigelow's message as State paper, covering every inch of ground it was I intended to cover, we will print 1t for hun l without comment, and accept it as the jldg- ment of a man competent to criticise. And we venture the assertion that ex-Governor | Hubbard, who knows good thing when he sees it, will tell the Times writer that he made long cared fool of himself.