tical use of my theory at the same time. Nay, almost any scholar will master the art, and go successfully through a complicated problem in arithmetic, which demands the repeated application of that art, long before he begins to understand the theory. So it is with every branch of knowledge. Fact before philosophy; art before science; compositions before parsing lessons. It is common for compositions to be left until a late day in the child's schooling. A scholar sometimes pleads his little advancement in other studies as a reason why he should be excused from this one. That is the old mistake again. That scholar has not been rightly managed. He ought to have begun upon his composition writing before he began to think about it. It is hardly saying too much, to say that he ought to have begun upon it at the primary school. If he knows enough to have a laugh with his companions over what he saw as he came along to school, he knows enough to be set to work at composition. The error is, that he has been so long neglected.

L. H. B.

MR. EDITOR: -I am happy to comply with your request, by sending a brief sketch of the building erected for the State Normal School at Salem. An interest in School Architecture has accompanied throughout, and, indeed, formed a very important element in that great movement, during the last quarter of a century, which Mr. May has so happily termed the "Revival of Education."

In our present mingled constitution of body and spirit, both mind and heart are greatly influenced and moulded by material surroundings. A good school house does not of necessity make a good school; nor does a bad school house absolutely forbid the intellectual and moral improvement of its inmates, for "afflictions are sometimes means of grace." Yet both unquestionably make a large contribution to the desirable or undesirable results of our system of public education. They have also, as expressions of general interest and estimation, continually presented to the public eye and reacting upon the public mind, an important influence in the elevation or degradation of popular instruction. Who has forgotten Mr. Mann's appeal?

"Suppose," he says, in one of his addresses, "at this moment, some potent enchanter, by the waving of his magic wand, should take up all the twenty-eight hundred school houses of Massachusetts, with all the little triangular and nondescript spots of earth whereon and wherein they have been squeezed,-whether sandbank, morass, bleak knoll, or torrid plain, — and, whirling them through the affrighted air, should set them all down, visibly, round about us in this place; and then should take us up into some watch-tower or observatory, where, at one view, we could behold the whole as they were encamped round about, — each one true to the point of compass which marked its nativity, each one retaining its own color or no color, each one standing on its own heath, hillock, or fen. I ask, my friends, if, in this new spectacle under the sun, with its motley hues of red, grey, and doubtful, with its windows sprinkled with patterns taken from Joseph's many-colored coat, with its broken chimneys, with its shingles and clapboards flapping and clattering in the wind, as if giving public notice that they were about to depart; - I ask if, in this indescribable and unnamable group of architecture, we should not see the true image, reflection, and embodiment of our own love, attachment, and regard for public schools and public education, as in a mirror face answereth to face!"

We rejoice that, since the delivery of this address, so great a change has taken place in our Commonwealth and country, and in no small degree through the influence of educational periodicals. But with this change a new danger has arisen, which Mr. Mann

little anticipated when he drew, as with Hogarth's pencil, the picture we have copied that of regarding our school buildings too much as mere public ornaments, and of constructing them more with reference to external architecture than to internal convenience. If our own building is deserving of any attention, it is as a model of liberality of dimension, and at the same time of strict economy, and remarkable commodiousness.

It is a substantial building of brick, and in its ground-plan a perfect square, measuring sixty-seven feet on each side. The economy of this shape is obvious from the familiar laws of Isoperimetry. The building covers an area of 4489 square feet; while, if it were 84 feet long, and 50 feet wide, with the same brick surface it would cover an area of only 4200 square feet. Its situation, on the west side of Summer street, is elevated, unobstructed, and airy, while, at the same time, it is quite near the heart of the city, and the Eastern Railroad Depot. The exterior, as will be seen by the accompanying vignette, is plain almost to Quaker simplicity; and has thus the advantage, if no other, of not offending the eye by ornaments in bad taste.

An entrance Hall, marked I, upon the accompanying plan, leads to a reception room, K; and to a long passage, D, which forms the general medium of communication between the different parts of the building, and a place for promenade in times of recess. As the school is designed for only one sex, it has but a single suite of dressing rooms, J and L. These are furnished with hooks for bonnets and cloaks, with boxes for rubbers, with marble wash-stands constantly supplied from an aqueduct, and, in the closet E, with shelves and drawers; while the staircase F leads to other conveniences in the cellar, or basement. Four flights of stairs, conveniently situated, give abundant means of access to the main school room, in the second story, M.

This room is furnished with desks for a hundred and twenty pupils, giving, from its large size, the unusual allowance, so valuable for good air, non-interference, and free motion, of more than twenty feet of area to each pupil. It is used for general exercises, for study, and for various examinations and other exercises in writing to which we attach great importance, but not ordinarily for oral recitations. These are heard in the four recitation rooms so con

veniently opening from this room, N, O, S, T; in the recitation room below, C; and in the lecture room, A, which, from its greater size, is especially used for reading and music. Our philosophical and chemical apparatus is kept in the room B; our cabinet of natural history, in G; and our library, in H, except those works which are most wanted for daily reference, and which are kept in the small room, Q, opening from the school room. The room H, however, which has also a table furnished with the chief educational periodicals of our country, is accessible to the members of the school at all times. Behind the teachers' platform is a small private room for the teachers, R.

The building was erected and furnished in the year 1853-4, by the city of Salem, at the following cost:

Contract for building, (including $600, as the estimated value of the materials obtained from an old building previously upon the lot,)

$11,100
1,200

850

$13,150

Of this sum, the Commonwealth contributed $6,000; the Eastern Railroad Company, $2,000; and the city of Salem, the balance, besides the valuable lot upon which the house stands. The State has since made appropriations for an iron fence around the building, and for other improvements and additional furniture. For the general plan of the building, which is such a model for the extent and convenience of its accommodations at so moderate a cost, and which I have therefore thought worth description, for the sake of those who are about to erect school edifices, we are chiefly indebted, I understand, to the late and so deeply lamented Hon. Stephen C. Phillips, and to Dr. Henry Wheatland, a member of the present Board of Education, and of the Board of Visitors for the school from its foundation. Obligations to other individuals for the establishment of the school, it might be out of place here to acknowledge.

A. C.