It becomes the duty of every teacher, of every school director, of every patron, to see that all injurious environment is removed. All neglected, uncomfortable school houses are a curse to the innocent childhood of Pennsylvania. I thank God every time one disappears.

The unlocked, unpainted, board, cheap out-buildings which stand in the corner of the grounds, a target for the bad boy's stones and jeers, are monuments of ignorance, cupidity and neglect, seminaries of sin.

How the fiends of hell must laugh when a close-fisted school director and a saw-and-hammer carpenter put their heads together to build cheap out-buildings with hemlock boards! - buildings buildings which, if located in the most inaccessible corners of the school lot, will meet the requirements of the recent laws. Their doors may bang and swing in the winter winds, the snow may pile and drift around and through them, their unpainted, splinty sides offer fresh attractions for the obscene pencil; yet if the strict limits of the law are fulfilled, the director folds his hands in complacent satisfaction, the carpenter smiles over his nail-built structure, and hell's agents grin with victory.

Access, durability, supervision, and privacy should be the leading objects in view in this department of school architecture. In West Whiteland, New London, West Goshen, East Whiteland and East Brandywine townships in Chester county, some and in many cases all the school buildings have the out-houses attached to the school house and accessible only from the school-room.

From a

careful examination of the workings of these plans, we are convinced that for country districts they excel any we have yet tried. J. Preston Thomas, Secretary of West Whiteland School Board, writes, "I think the plan the only one that can be devised. They have worked very successfully the past year." In each corner of one end of the building, usually the blackboard end, one or two doors pass through the wall into either a small cloak-room or passage-way as the case may be. Beyond this another door leads into the closet.

In West Whiteland these attachments to old school houses, including the cloak rooms, cost about $133 for each school house. In West Goshen, where the buildings are set back several feet from

the school house and approached by walled and roofed passage-ways, the cost was about $180. A member of the Board, Mr. D. C. Windle, writing of the results, says, "It has been entirely satisfactory; we have not heard a single objection, but much to commend it. The Board is so well pleased with the experiment that we expect eventually to put them to all our school houses."

Mr. J. A. Wiley, of New London township, where the repairs included cloak rooms, and closets, all lined with hard wood, estimates the cost at about $400. From considerable observation we are inclined to recommend a plain walled passage way, twelve or fifteen feet in length, and no cloak-rooms unless for the girls. This plan with three solid doors, ventilated closets and all workmanship and material of the best, can be attached to a school house for from $125 to $150 each. In East Whiteland, in a single oneroomed school house, we have the Smead & Wills heat and ventilation with the closets on the same floor, entered as above mentioned. W. Harman Davis, Secretary of the Board, writes, "The approximate additional cost of Valley Creek school on account of out-houses being indoors, was about two hundred dollars made up principally in increased length of building, partitions, etc. The cost of additional buildings placed outside must be taken into account in this calculation. These are in any case very destructible, and a matter of constant attention and repair; while the method adopted at Valley Creek is as permanent as the building, excluding trespassers, directly under the teacher's care, and, after being in use one term, we do not find a mark or scratch within the doors. The fears expressed by some that there would be a taint in the atmosphere of the school-room have been groundless, the teacher assuring me that at no time has he been able to detect the least hint of such infection."

No arrangement is self-regulating. Everything of this kind needs the personal attention of the teacher. Yet when the access is from the school-room, means are put within the teacher's reach to keep things as they should be. Then the responsibility can be located. Repairs of this kind are permanent. There is little or no destructive inclination; and when the buildings are properly ventilated and cared for there is no trespass of sanitary conditions.

In boroughs and towns we have found no system superior to the Smead & Wills dry-air closet and a capable janitor in the basement, or at least liable to be there at any time.

When the buildings are in the yard there should be twice as many separate closets as there are rooms, and numbered keys for each hung in the school-room. Access for the different sexes should be entirely separate, and the janitor should inspect the buildings twice a day. Anything short of this is a crime against childhood; and the expense is as great as some systems of ventilation with dry-air

closets included.

In rural schools where the buildings are separate from the school house, they should be kept locked and the keys hanging in the school-room for use. And in all cases eternal vigilance is the price of morality.

When the school men of Pennsylvania insist upon these matters, when patrons come to fully realize the necessity for care and expense here, when we are all convinced that the children of the State are more precious than a few dollars saved, then will these things be beyond reproach.

Superintendents and Secretaries of School Boards have no right to sign the annual reports declaring that all things have been done according to law in that district where the out-buildings are known to be in open contradiction to the spirit of the law. The new law on this subject, passed by the Legislature at its late session and signed by the Governor within the past few days, withholds the State appropriation from any district that does. not report its school outhouses in such proper condition as the act of assembly describes and requires.*

Where two school rooms are to be included in one building the moral advantage of having both rooms on one floor needs no discussion among thinking school men.

The school building should always be so located upon the school grounds as to leave no part of the play limits outside the range of the school-house windows. We have always found an uncomfortable percentage of bad boys in districts where the play-grounds were back of the house and no windows overlooked the children.

*The new law here mentioned is found elsewhere, in the Official Department of the present number of The School Journal.

OF SCHOOL GROUNDS.

The school-room with its course of study is scarcely half of a boy's life educationally. The time out of school, the association with other pupils, the games and the quarrels, the liberty or repression, what factors were these in our early school life! And now when we have forgotten the lessons and many of the teachers, we still remember the open grove of spreading chestnuts, the long, winding, moss-fringed path, the long noons and recesses during the summer, the unfettered freedom to run and play, to gather flowers and nuts, to build playhouses, to talk and dream.

How well I recall the time when our old house and grounds were sold, and we were moved to a new house blistering in the glaring sun, with narrow, muddy grounds, with bounds and limits and nothing but a coal-house for boyish shade. How the games of the past faded away! The girls stood around or stayed in the house, the boys varied their ball game with playing horse, but soon tired of both. Jealous neighbors objected to boys climbing into their lots for the ball. There was not room to "drive horse." We soon learned to throw stones, to throw coal, to break windows, to fight, and to

swear.

Few of us knew why it was so. Our beautiful grove was cut away. We saw it go up in smoke. No tears were shed, but we used to sit on the fence and talk of the old school and the good old days, when boys were boys and you could get up a game of something. Then suddenly some bullying boy, as if cursing fate, would knock a small boy from the fence into the mud, and then stones and and curses filled the air.

We have often fancied since, that this change of results following our modern

ized school environment had no causal relation thereto, outside of the imagination; but after visiting many schools many times, where environing conditions often represented both extremes, and after noticing again and again results similar to my boyhood's experience, I have asked myself, "Can these things be true?" Are boys susceptible to these conditions? Does the spirit of the meadow and woodland breathe virtue into a child?

Was Canon Farrar right when he wrote, "Two voices I heard at school continually for seven years, the voice of the mountains and the voice of the sea.

can for the money now expended offer a 'two years' course of study beyond that now pursued, can surround their pupils with several acres of beautiful playgrounds and forest shade, can secure better teaching and avoid the waste and loss incident to those dead and lifeless little schools.

When we first started the hack two years ago in Tredyffrin township, Chester county, as a wet-day institution, it was soon found that the attendance and punctuality on rainy days surpassed all other days. So well pleased were the

directors with the plan that, during the coming year, two districts are to be consolidated into one. A hack will bring in the children from the adjacent district, and a graded system of schools in the country will be started.

If these things prove successful, do they not solve the difficulties in the way of enlarged school grounds? It is not so much a matter of increased expense as of clearer views of the purposes of education. It only requires concentration and effort to accomplish what many to-day would smile at as visionary.

THE SCHOOL JOURNAL.

LANCASTER, AUGUST, 1895.

The best of men that ever wore earth about him was a sufferer, a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed. Decker. Ye may be aye stickin' in a tree, Jock; it will be growin' when ye're sleepin'.-Scotch Farmer.

N. C. SCHAEFFER.

THE

J. P. MCCASKEY.

HE legislation of the late session has, on the whole, been very favorable to the schools. The annual State appropriation has been continued at five and one half millions. Some bills proposed, more or less mischievous in character, and others of little account good or bad, fell by the way. Of bills enacted into law nearly everything is in the line of progress.

The Compulsory Education bill is a tentative measure, the results of which, we trust, will be largely to increase our school attendance. The Religious Garb bill is one of questionable propriety, and the courts will probably be called upon for a decision as to whether or not it is in accord with the Constitution of the State.

In our issue for June there was given, in the official department, the text of the Compulsory School law which, under the recent decision of the Attorney-General, will not go into effect until next year, and of the new law for the appointment of Examiners for the State Normal Schools. In the present issue will be found the full text of the laws providing for the classification of high schools in Pennsylvania, the incorporation of insti

tutions of learning and the power of conferring degrees, free public libraries in school districts, decency in and about school outhouses, the support of kindergarten schools, the Religious Garb bill, a change in the method of selecting the Committee on Permanent Certificates in counties and cities, the instruction of district pupils at State Normal schools, the publication of an increased number of copies of the School Laws and Decisions, and the employment of a stenographer and typewriter in the Department of Public Instruction. A law was also passed permitting school districts having fifty or more teachers under a Superintendent, to hold separate institutes should it seem desirable to do so.

THE change which the new law makes in the method of selecting the Committee on Permanent Certificates of counties and cities is radical, and will save much time at Institutes, where often a day or more is lost by many teachers in canvassing for the election of persons whom they desire to have upon this committee. Good will result in other ways also from the new law, found in official department.

THE new law in relation to decency in and about school outhouses fitly supplements the act of 1893, and withholds the State appropriation from the school district that neglects or refuses to keep these essential buildings in good repair and proper sanitary condition. This is eminently right. Why teach morality and decency in words in the school-room, and outside present an object lesson of indecency and immorality? The law of two

years ago did much in the way of im- | provement, but there were many districts that gave it no attention. Hence the necessity for additional legislation. The appropriation withheld or forfeited for such cause is a penalty that, it is thought, no School Board will care to have imposed for neglect of duty. To Hon. John H. Landis, of Lancaster county, belongs the honor of having introduced both these bills, that of 1893 and 1895, into the Legislature. It is the very best kind of legislation. In this connection also we call the attention of school authorities to the suggestive paper of Supt. Jos. S. Walton upon the same general subject. Let this whole matter be put upon a better basis. The outhouse and its surroundings should be as clean as the school house. The new law is found elsewhere in this issue of The Journal.

IN ordering renewal of subscription for the members of his Board, Mr. Jno. C. Wagner, secretary of the Shippensburg school district, subscribes for the principal of the schools and says, "We have added a teacher of drawing and music to our corps as an experiment, with a view of making it permanent."

If it were not for sleep the world could not go on. To feel the mystery of day and night, to gaze into the far-receding spaces of their marvel, is more than to know all the combinations of chemistry. A little wonder is worth tons of knowledge.-George Macdonald.

THE post-office address of County Supt. R. M. McNeal is changed from Steelton to No. 802 North Sixth st., Harrisburg, he having removed to that city.

THE summer school at Joanna Heights had an excellent programme and did much good work. We wish we could give it the extended notice which its importance deserves. These summer schools, in many different parts of the county, are of great benefit to teachers and others interested in special lines of study, and this in many ways. We find relief in change. The new things in which the mind is interested, or the new faces and forms which old things assume, make effort a renewed delight. The vacation time of activity amid new surroundings may be of much greater profit than if spent idly and without other aim than mere resting.

The summer student thinks new thoughts and gathers fresh ideas, gets different food and air and company from what he has had, and should be able to do better work and live a larger life than before.

THE

MEETING AT DENVER.

HE meeting of the National Educational Association at Denver, Colorado, was one of the largest and most enthusiastic ever held in the history of the Association. Frequent rains, which are said to be exceptional in Denver at this season of the year, induced most of the teachers to postpone their contemplated excursions to the Rocky Mountains until the close of the sessions, and cause an unprecedented attendance, not only at the general sessions but also at the department meetings. To those accustomed to the humid atmosphere of the Atlantic Slope, the dry air of Colorado is at first a source of great discomfort, and the dry, parched feeling in nose, throat, and lips of which the unacclimated complain, was greatly alleviated, and in most cases altogether prevented, by the daily rains during the sessions.

The hospitality of the Denver people is proverbial. The teachers brought more trunks did than the conclave of Knights Templar; improved methods of handling baggage prevented the recurrence of the famous trunk blockade of several years ago. Many of the teachers from the East will spend several weeks in the Rocky Mountains. The Summer School at Colorado Springs, will probably have an attendance of over 1000 teachers.

Of the reports which were read before the National Council the two which attracted most attention were those on "Rural Schools" by Chairman Sabin, State Superintendent of Iowa, and on "the Laws of Mental Congruence and Energy applied to some Pedagogical Problems" by Prof. Hinsdale, of Michigan University. Supt. Sabin's report stirred up such an interest in the ungraded school problem that a committee of nine was appointed to carry on the investigation, and the directors of the National Educational Association were induced to set aside $2500 for the purpose of meeting the committee's expenses and of enabling them to publish their report.

Mr. Hailman, of the Indian Bureau at Washington, made a soul-stirring speech