IMPROVEMENTS IN SCHOOL DESKS AND OTHER LIKE ARTICLES
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Horace Palmer Colman and John
Glendenning at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 7th July
1877.
HORACE PALMER COLMAN and JOHN GLENDENNING, both of Norwich, in the
County of Norfolk. "IMPROVEMENTS IN SCHOOL DESKS AND OTHER LIKE
ARTICLES."
Our Invention relates to improvements in school desks, and other desks or tables
to be used in writing or reading, and is designed to furnish the same with seats,
which will render these desks more convenient for the pupils or occupants than
other desks heretofore furnished for school and similar purposes.
It is very desirable that school desks should be constructed to occupy the smallest
practicable space without obstructing the entrance or exit of the pupils, or pre-
venting their free movement in rising or sitting, as required by the exercise of the
school or otherwise. Desks with fixed seats are open to the objection that they
occupy a large area of the floor space, and if sufficient space is left between the
seat and the shelf or board of the desk to permit the required freedom for moving
therein, the seat will be too far from the shelf of the desk to permit the pupil to
occupy a favorable position for writing.
It has been sought to obviate this difficulty by numerous contrivances for
rendering the seat adjustable, but hitherto none of these desks have proved quite
satisfactory in use.
The object of our Invention is the construction of a desk with an adjustable seat,
and whose adjustability is effected in such a simple manner as to need no attention
on the part of the pupil or occupant of the desk.
We construct our improved school desks as follows-The desk proper, or slab, or
shelf on which the books or other articles are placed while being used, is supported
in standards or uprights of metal or wood, and the desks may be provided with an
auxiliary shelf also supported by the said uprights. The latter are firnily secured
by screws, or otherwise, upon wooden feet or boards, or upon any other suitable
base. In front of and parallel to the said desk or shelf I arrange the aforesaid seat.
This seat is supported on the top of arms or bars which are pivotted or jointed in
blocks or bearing pieces at their lower ends in such a manner that the said seat
[Price 21

page_text: will be free to oscillate within certain limits toward and from the said desk or shelf,
the oscillation or to-and-fro movement being limited by stops formed or fixed on
the said blocks. By this construction and arrangement of the seat in combination
with the desk, shelf, or table the said seat will be adjusted by the movements of the
pupil in rising or sitting down, that is to say, in and by the act of rising the seat
will be pushed back on its pivots, leaving a free space in which the pupil can stand
conveniently and comfortably, or can move freely in leaving the desk. On the
other hand, when the pupil sits down, the seat moves forward by the movement of
the body and adjusts itself to the required position.
Although we have more particularly described our Invention as applied to school
desks, it is obviously applicable in like manner to other desks and tables used in
writing, reading, or for similar purposes.