Year: 1878

Public architecture is not our stronO.
/ hold, nor is it likely to be so long as the
first impressions of the building art are
| gained, as a rule, from structures so
Wretchedly unartistic as the average
sehool-house. However Just may be our
pride in our common schools, the hous-
ing of them rebounds very little to our
credit. This fact was made painfully
| apparent at the Paris Exposition, few
| years ago, where a model of an American
school-house was exhibited. A grand
idea was probably never more pitifully
represented. It was an ugly little
| wooden school-hOuse, sent all the way
from the interior of Illinois to the
Champs de Mars, to show the assembled
world our high regard for popular educa-
ton. A Webster's spelling-boOk would
have been as felicitous a representation
of the results of national effort. Yet
bad as it was, the sample-to use a COM
mercial fgure-was far too good to rep
resent fairly the character of the stock.
1t was new and clean; and happily it
was impossible to transport the fOrlorn
and unsightly surroundings of the aver
age schooi-house.


Many of the lower order of creation
exhibit, individually, quite as much in
dependence in the construction of their
houses as man does in his. Men go on,
| from generation to generation, copying
inherited models as blindly as birds and
beavers. The bees that lead civilization
westward are not more conservative in
their building instincts than the carpen-
ters who follow.


The impressions received upon the
mind at school are retained through life;
whether they are pleasant and agreeable,
or the converse, depends very materially
upon the school-house and its surround
ings And this brings US to the question,
why are not school-houses fashioned so
as to present an attractive appearance
inside and out? At roadside crossings,
from Maine to Minnesota, the traveller
will find the same nondesc1pt structure;
too small for barns, too ill-proportioned
for dwellings, too much neglected and
desolate for outlying farm buildings,
indeed too repulsive in all respects, and
exhibiting too many marks of parsi-
mony to be anything but-scho ooI-houses.


Undoubtedly every man or woman,
who has ever been a school-boy or girl,
remembers Just how the old school-house
looked. Despite the riffs of time and
intervening miles, it is there memory
goes for pleasant or unpleasant retro
speetion. Suppose the school-house is
made an attractive feature in some rare
bit of landscape? 1t may occupy space
upon a gently sloping hillside, so that it
be emboWered in shade, or it may be
situate in the depths of glen, where the
babbling brook goes ripping and purling
over rocky bed and through grassy
banks but wherever situated, it should
harmonic with the scenery Immediately
surrounding it, and be the first object to
attract the eye Of an artist.


1t may be argued that so desirable
result is scarcely attainable. We sub
NIT that it is, without a single exception.
There is no landscape so rugged that its
roughness cannot be modified and pic
turesque beauty fashioned from the very
uncouthness of the surroundings, and
this at a mere trihing outlay-in point
of fact, without any expense. For once
enlist the pupils in the cause, and they
will plant the trees and shrubbery, trail
the vines and take pride in the. work.


But anything is good enough for a
schOol-house That is the accepted
idea: and so we go on, copying the
fixing blots upon the face of nature,





the site selected happens to be in the
midst of primeval grove, down it goes
to the last tree, within the full limits of
the lot. Just why this should be deemed
necessary is not an altogether incom-
prehensible mystery. The school
houses where we were taught the ele-
ments looked just so, and any innOYa-
ton might induce wayfarers TO mistake
the structure for a church building, or
one intended for some other purpose
than a school-house, and that would
never do.


How to induce q reform. not only in
the architectural construction of our
schooI-houses, but also in the entire sur
roundings, is a question which cannot
be too soon presented, or too persistently
urged. The farming community are
especially sensitive upon this point
Able and independent, they cannot
brook interference with affairs which
concern themselves alone; and thus
any suggestion, looking to sehool-house
improvements, usually falls upon pre-
JUDGED and unwilling ears. Another
generation may be more artistic, less
practical, and willing to sacrifice little
time, and even a little money, to make
school-houses attractive to youth, and the
dearest spot in memory's waste.