El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-09-01

in small town. in which there are
not two or more class rooms which
can be thrown together in this manner.
Frequently city school buildings are
planned so that one entire floor. COM
posed of dozen rooms or more, may
be thrown together into one good
sized auditorium.
Bcston's Model Structure.
The typical high school building Of
the country reveals an interesting
progress not only in school architec
ture. but in teaching methods as we'll
One of the most distinctive is the Latin
and English high school in Boston,
which was inspired by a study of the
celebrated '.Academiscat gymnasium"
of Vienna, which has been generally
conceded to be the best school building
in the world The building is q pure
type of court form, covering block
of ground 423 by 220 feet in size The
rooms and corridors are arranged in
parallelogram form around a central
court, which admits light and furnishes
a playground The lighting of the
school rooms is practically from the
street side. Among its distinctive fea-
lures is a large military drill room, 80
by So feet in size and an amphitheat-
rical lecture room for teaching sci
ence-
{. conservatory, where growing flow
ers are kept for the enjoyment of the
pupils as well as the study Of natural
science, is a new feature added to
number of schools. This conservatory
is scientifically heated and ventilated.
SO that it provides proper accommoda-
ton for many valuable plants from
the tropics, which have been added
from time to time to the school coll
lection.
Cafes for Lunches.
The question Of school lunches also
requires the architects attention In
most of the city high schools and many
of the elementary schools lunches are
served from Well appointed cafe un-
der the direction of the school author
tiles, and a room must be provided for
this. In some schools, where domes-
tic science is taught, the lunch room
is used as class room during school
hours.
Some provision for darken1ng the
room for scientific purposes in illus
trated lectures, is a problem in archi-
lecture which has been lately solved
by an elaborate mechanism in the new
Kansas City Manual Training school.
The assembly room, which is well
lighted by a window area Of $500
square feet can be completely dark
ened in so seconds by an automatic
device. which controls the raising and
lowering of the darkening shades AMI
the screen back Of the platform.
Physical Laboratories.
In this school there are physical and
biological laboratories furnished for
teaching physics. chemistry, botany
and zoology The chemical laboratory
is fitted with students working desks
having solid slate tops. The tables in
the biological laboratory are topped
with plate glass, giving a smooth, cas-
lily cleaned surface for dissection The
corridors in this building on the first
and second floor, are 10 feet wide and
serve for exhibition purposes The art
room has been supplied with a north
light, making it ideal for free hand,
work There are outside payilions for
the shops and laboratories
In connection with school architect
ure. mention should be made Of the
furniture now almost universally pro-
yided in American schools. In no Other
country in the world has so great at