Book Description
Excerpt from School Buildings, School Grounds, and Their Improvement: Kansas, 1911 Many requests have come to this department from rural and village communities for information and suggestions relative to the construction of school buildings. The frequency of these inquiries is sufficient excuse for the present attempt to offer some advice and to give some illustrations based upon the conclusions of modern architects, and of those school authorities who have given much study to this important subject. However, a still stronger reason for the present attempt lies in the great number of school buildings in this state that represent no effort to comply with the modern demand for either architectural effect or economic or sanitary needs. The old type of the box schoolroom is, unhappily, too familiar to us all. The wonderful improvement that has taken place in public buildings in general, and in the homes of our land, finds but little counterpart in the average school. A trip through the rural districts of the state will convince the most doubting that the average schoolhouse and its grounds are bare, harsh, cheerless and unattractive. The child naturally loves the beautiful. In childhood the mind is impressionable and, whether it is realized or not, the discomforts, lack of harmony and beauty in the average school building unconsciously make a deep and lasting impression on his mind, tending to low ideals, and especially to the lack of care for the property of others. Many farmhouses of to-day are models of comfort and beauty. The buildings are often surrounded by orchards, well-kept groves, neat shrubbery and flower beds in the dooryards. Surely the time has arrived when the people of Kansas should interest themselves in school environment, and by well-directed efforts afford an opportunity to the child to study the beauties of nature at first hand. Location. "In selecting a site for a school building, the questions of drainage, convenience, beauty of surroundings and accessibility should have prime consideration. Select, if possible, some plat of ground slightly elevated, that the surface may be properly drained and kept as free as possible from mud. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.