Amount of current expenses, exclusive of houses and furniture, $291,526 58 62 $178,325 84 36,213 07 40,906 63 13,422 72 $332,433 21 Average of expense for each pupil, exclusive of books &c., 5 67 75 Average expense of books and stationery to each pupil, The Statistics of the Public Schools for the year ending Dec. 31st, 1860, are as follows: Population of the First School District, in 1860, Total number of Pupils, boys, 568,034 32,486 31,044 Total, 63,530 PLAN AND DESCRIPTION OF JEFFERSON GRAMMAR SCHOOL-HOUSE IN PHILADELPHIA. Jefferson Grammar School is located in Fifth-street above Poplar, and was erected in 1836. The lot is 100 feet on the street, and 120 feet deep, and the space not occupied by the building and the walks, is planted with the choicest shrubs and flowers, which are kept in beautiful condition by the teacher and pupil. For these, the fountain, and other embellishments, the children and the public owe a large debt of gratitude to Daniel S. Beideman Esq., who has thus introduced a new element of physical, moral, esthetical education into the public schools of this section of the city. The children of the school exhibit a commendable pride in taking care of the grounds, and in protecting the shrubbery, flowers, and other embellishments from the depredations of the "outside barbarians." The influence, direct and indirect, of these decorations, and of the daily care and interest in their preservation by the pupils, was soon manifest in their improved manners and tastes, and in the improved habits of the whole neighborhood. And why can not every city schoolhouse, even when located in the most crowded neighborhood, have its plat of flowers, and its attractions of verdure and foliage, if it must be on a small scale, and if no other place can be afforded, on the walls of the inclosures? Why nay not a vase of flowers always adorn the table of the teacher, and bust of orator, poet, patriot, and philanthropist, fill, each its appropriate nich around the school-room? As has been justly remarked by Mrs. Sigourney, in a valuable "Essay on the Cultivation of the Beautiful in Common Schools"-the expense of such decorations will not be thrown away, the beautiful objects will not be defaced, and the fair scenery will not be desecrated. It will be casier to enforce habits of neatness and order among objects whose taste and value make them worthy of care, than amid that parsimony of apparatus and adornment, whose pitiful meanness operates as a temptation to waste and destroy. The building is 100 feet by 50, and three stories high. Each story is divided into one large school-room, with four class rooms in connection. The first story is occupied by a Primary School; the second, by the girls department of the Grammat School, and the third, by the boys' department. PLAN AND DESCRIPTION OF NORTH-EAST GRAMMAR SCHOOL-HOUSE, The Grammar School-house on New street, between Second and First-streets, in Philadelphia, was erected after plans and specifications made by Samuel Sloan, Architect, in 1852. It is 81 feet 6 inches front, by 65 feet 6 inches deep, and three stories high, each story being fifteen feet in the clear. The basement, windows, and door trimmings are of the best blue marble, finely cut and polished, and the walls are of the best pressed brick. All the outside walls are laid with a hollow space of four inches the inner and the outside walls being tied together with alternate bricks in the heading courses. The building is warmed by three of Chilson's furnaces, of the largest size, and ventilated by a shaft, extending from the cellar to the top of the roof, with lateral flues and openings from each story, with a stove at the base in the cellar, to warm the shaft, to quicken the discharge of the foul air, both in winter and summer. The peculiarity of this, and the more recently constructed school-houses in Philadelphia, is in the plan of the school-rooms. Instead of one large room, with two or more class rooms in connection on each floor, each story is divided into four apartments, of suitable size to accommodate the number of pupils assigned to one teacher, with movable glass partitions. By this arrangement, the Principal can have a full view of all the pupils and assistants on the same floor, while each division is protected from annoyance or interruption from the exercises of the other. By removing the glazed partitions, one half of which is admitted into the wainscotting below, and the other, into the wainscotting above, and are so hung as to balance each other, the several apartments are thrown into one, and the whole school is then within the hearing and voice of the principal The following cut, Fig. 2, represents the first floor of the North-east Grammar School, and gives a good idea of the new plan of arranging the school-rooms. a, a, a, a-Entrance lobby to the rooms on the ground plan. D, D, D, D, D-Class rooms to accommodate 60 pupils each. E, E-Vestibules, which afford a communication from one room to the other, having glazed doors on its four sides. F-A shaft, which contains all the hot-air pipes, from which they branch to the various rooms on each story and discharge through register in the floor. The vestibules E, E, on the second and third stories, are also the entrances to the class rooms from the outer gallery or landing of the stairs. H, H, H, H, H, H-The ventilating flues, which are placed in the angles of the rooms opposite to that of the hot-air registers. I, I, I, I, I-The teachers desk, with a small platform 6 feet broad by 8 feet long. Fig. 2.-SECOND FLOOR OF THE WARREN GRAMMAR SCHOOL. The Warren Grammar School-house is situated on Robertson-street, was built in 1852, on the same general plan as the North-east Grammar School, the description of which is applicable to this. |