APPENDIX. DESCRIPTION OF AN OCTAGONAL SCHOOLHOUSE, FURNISHED FOR THIS WORK BY MESSRS. TOWN AND DAVIS, ARCHITECTS, NEW-YORK. THIS design for a schoolhouse intends to exhibit a model of fitness and close economy. It differs from a design published by the Common School Society of New-York, in being made more simple, without the belfry, and complete in the octagon form. It is also similar to a design published by the Connecticut Board of Commissioners of Common Schools. The principles of fitness are the same in both, viz. 1. Ample dimensions, with very nearly the least possible length of wall for its enclosure, the roof being constructed without tie beams, the upper and lower ends of the rafters being held by the wall plates and frame at the foot of the lantern. The ceiling may show the timber-work of the roof, or it may be plastered. 2. Light, a uniform temperature, and a free ventilation, secured by a lantern light, thus avoiding lateral windows (except for air in summer), and gaining wall-room for blackboards, maps, models, and illustrations. Side windows are shown in the view, and may be made an addition by those who doubt the efficiency of the lantern light. (The lantern is not only best for light, but it is essential for a free ventilation.) With such a light, admitted equally to all the desks, there will be no inconvenience from shadows. The attention of the scholars will not be distracted by occurrences or objects out of doors. There will be less expense for broken glass, as the sashes will be removed from ordinary accidents. The room, according to this plan, is heated by a fire in the centre, either in a stove or grate, with a pipe going directly through the roof of the lantern, and finishing outside in a sheetiron vase or other appropriate cap. The pipe can be tastefully fashioned, with a hot-air chamber near the floor, so as to afford a large radiating surface before the heat is allowed to escape. This will secure a uniform temperature in every part of the room, at the same time that the inconvenience from a pipe passing directly over the heads of children is avoided. The octagonal shape will admit of any number of seats and desks (according to the size of the room), arranged parallel with the sides, constructed as described in specification, or on such principles as may be preferred. The master's seat may be in the centre of the room, and the seats be so constructed that the scholars may sit with their backs to the centre, by which their attention will not be diverted by facing other scholars on the opposite side, and yet so that at times they may all face the master, and the whole school be formed into one class. The lobby next to the front door is made large (8 by 20), so that it may serve for a recitation-room. This lobby is to finish eight feet high, the inside wall to show like a screen, not rising to the roof, and the space above be open to the schoolroom, and used to put away or station school apparatus. This screen-like wall may be hung with hats and clothes, or the triangular space next the window may be enclosed for this purpose. The face of the octagon opposite to the porch has a woodhouse attached to it, serving as a sheltered way to a double privy beyond. This woodhouse is open on two sides, to admit of a cross draught of air, preventing the possibility of a nuisance. Other wing. rooms may be attached to the remaining sides of the octagon, if additional conveniences for closets, library, or recitation-rooms be desired. The mode here suggested, of a lantern in the centre of the roof for lighting all common schoolhouses, is so great a change from common usage in our country, that it requires full and clear explanations for its execution, and plain and satisfactory reasons for its general adoption, and of its great excellence in preference to the common mode. They are as follows, viz. : 1. A skylight is well known to be far better and stronger than light from the sides of buildings in cloudy weather, and in morning and evening. The difference is of the greatest importance. In short days (the most used for schools) it is still more so. 2. The light is far better for all kinds of study than side light, from its quiet uniformity and equal distribution. 3. For smaller houses, the lantern may be square, a simple form easily constructed. The sides, whether square or octagonal, should incline like the drawing, but not so much as to allow water condensed on its inside to drop off, but run down on the inside to the bottom, which should be so formed as to conduct it out by a small aperture at each bottom pane of glass. 4. The glass required to light a schoolroom equally well with side lights would be double what would be required here, and the lantern would be secure from common accidents, by which a great part of the glass is every year broken. 5. The strong propensity which scholars have to look out by a side window would be mostly prevented, as the shutters to side apertures would only be opened when the warm weather would require it for air, but never in cool weather, and therefore no glass would be used. The shutters being made very tight, by corking, in winter, would make the schoolroom much warmer than has been common; and, being so well ventilated, and so high in the centre, it would be more healthy. 6. The stove, furnace, or open grate, being in the centre of the room, has great advantages, from diffusing the heat to all parts, and equally to all the scholars; it also admits the pipe to go perpendicu larly up, without any inconvenience, and it greatly facilitates the ventilation, and the retention or escape of heat, by means of the sliding cap above. Construction.-Foundation of hard stone, laid with mortar; the superstructure framed and covered with 1 plank, tongued, grooved, and put on vertically, with a fillet, chamfered at the edges, over the joint, as here shown. In our view, a rustic character is given to the design by covering the sides with slabs; the curved side out, tongued, and grooved, without a fillet over the joint; or formed of logs placed vertically, and lathed and plastered on the inside. The sides diminish slightly upward. A rustic porch is also shown, the columns of cedar boles, with vines trained upon them. The door is battened, with braces upon the outside, curved as shown, with a strip around the edge. It is four feet wide, seven high, in two folds, one half to be used in inclement weather. The cornice projects two feet six inches, better to defend the boarding; and may show the ends of the. rafters. Roof covered with tin, slate, or shingles. Dripping eaves are intended, without gutters. The roof of an octagonal building of ordinary dimensions may with ease and perfect safety be constructed without tie beams or a garret floor (which is, in all cases of schoolhouses, waste room, very much increasing the exposure to fire, as well as the expense). The wall-plates, in this case, become ties, and must be well secured, so as to form one connected hoop, capable of counteracting the pressure outward of the angular rafters. The sides of the roof will abut at top against a similar timber octagonal frame, immediately at the foot of the lantern cupola. This frame must be sufficient to resist the pressure inward of the roof (which is greater or less, as the roof is more or less inclined in its pitch), in the same manner as the tie-plates must resist the pressure outward. This security is given in an easy and cheap manner; and may be given entirely by the roof boarding, if it is properly nailed to the angular rafters, and runs horizontally round the roof. By this kind of roof, great additional height is given to the room by camp-ceiling ; that is, by planing the rafters and roof-boards, or by lathing and plastering on a thin half-inch board ceiling, immediately on the underside of the rafters, as may be most economically performed. This extra height in the centre will admit of low side-walls, from seven to ten feet in the clear, according to the size and importance of the building, and, at the same time, by the most simple principle of philosophy, conduct the heated foul air up to the central aperture, which should be left open quite round the pipe of the stove, or open grate standing in the centre of the room. This aperture and cap, with the ventilator, is shown by the figure adjoining, which is to a scale of half an inch to a foot. The ventilator is drawn raised, and the dotted lines show it let down upon the roof. It may be of any required size, say two feet wide and twelve inches high, sliding up and down between the stovepipe and an outward case, forming a cap to exclude water. This cap may be pushed up or let down by a rod affixed to the under edge, and lying against the smokepipe. PIPE. In the design given, the side-walls are ten feet high, and the lan |