PLAN OF SCHOOL HOUSE IN CENTER DISTRICT-HARTFORD.

In 1841 Rev. Horace Bushnell described the 'Old Stone Jug,' as the venera ble predecessor of the Brown School House was termed, as follows:

We begin our exposition by asking you to go with us and take a deliberate survey of the heart of our system, the Center School (as it is called) of the city. You pass into a short narrow street, which is the gorge of the City Market; as if the stomach and the head of the city were going to a common supply. In wet weather its pavement is a deep liquid substance; in dry, it is sublimed to mix with the air as before it did with the water. The school building is a large barrack-looking structure of brick and stone, with the gable to the street and standing close upon the sidewalk. In the rear is a small pen of low ground, submerged for the most part in water, during the wet seasons of the year, which is the airing place of the establishment. On the right or south side, at the distance of 6 or 10 feet, is a blacksmith shop, the tops of whose chimneys, always discharging a thick cloud of smoke, from the bituminous coal, are just upon a level with the upper windows of the building; which windows, being open in the summer (if it can be endured) to catch the cool south wind, which is the principal breeze of the summer months, receive the black sirocco slanted from the chimney tops. On the left or north side, at a narrower distance, is a high board fence; and five or six rods farther off stands, facing with its broad side, a long narrow tenement, that stretches itself out "full many a rood" like Satan or the poet's burning lake-to cover the cellar and the nine-pin alley under it. And the ring of the hammers on one side is not more constant or audible than the rattle of the pins on the other. Here, then, is the principal public school of our intelligent, liberal, humane city. You enter and find it filled with children, especially in winter, from the cellar below to the garret above. From four to six hundred are here collected. The rooms are all very low, and the wall of a dingy brown color. Here and there you will see a rude board partition, which the teachers have put up at their own expense, for the better assortment and more easy management of the pupils. These are seated at their task and, of necessity, in very close order, for the rooms will scarcely contain them when stowed as economically as possible. In the summer, as we just said, the rooms are ventilated with smoke; in the winter, not at all, but the children are ventilated instead, by an occasional airing in the pen just mentioned. Here, for instance, are a hundred and fifty children, confined in a low room from two to four hours; which is, to all practical intents, as if they were sent into a huge bottle of the same contents, and corked in. They are expiring carbonic acid from their lungs, at every breath, and from every pore of their skins. In a short time the air becomes thoroughly mixed with this deadly gas,—the same that is found at the bottom of wells and other like receptacles-and before the sitting is over the dull eyes of the poor children, a yawn of stupefaction here and there visible, and a head dropped in sleep, give the clearest tokens that the poison is taking effect! Of course it will be needful now (whether done or not) to apply the stimulus of the whip, to wake up for the want of any stimulus or life principle in the air! Inasmuch, however, as the freezing of a part of the school is better than the suffocation of the whole, a window was kept up, we are told, a good part of the last winter, blowing directly into the room!

Is there injustice done by our picture? Let any citizen go to the spot and view it for himself, and see if every thing does not stand exactly as we have set it forth. Let him look for a shaded ground or a fair ceiling or a ventilationany thing to relieve the uncomfortable, vulgar, barbarous character of the establishment. Is this the place, we ask, to teach morality or to clear a child's intellect? Could any person, knowing what dominion outward things have over the mind, conceive it possible that order, purity, sweetness of temper, cheerful application should grow up here? Were it proposed to make a retreat for the insane, of this establishment, every man would see the absurdity of the plan. The city poor could not be consigned to it, without violence to the humane feelings of the citizens. On what principle, we then ask, is it thought to be a fit place for the education of our sons and daughters.

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PLANS OF BROWN SCHOOL, HARTFORD, CONN.

THE lot on which the Brown School in the Center District stands, is 300 feet on Market street, and 320 feet on Talcott street, and cost, including grading, iron fence, and sidewalks, $35,000. The building is four stories high, besides the basement, 140 feet long by 70 wide, and contains, in addition to a hall for the public exercises of the whole school, 22 school-rooms, each 32 by 28 feet, and all furnished with single desks and chairs for 56 pupils, or a total of 1,200. To each school-room there is a clothesroom for the pupils, and another for the teachers, supplied with water. The whole building, including corridors, is heated by Brown's Hot-Water Apparatus, and is ventilated by openings from each room into shafts, discharging into two flues, which are carried above the roof. The material and workmanship are of the first quality, and the whole structure (including $25,000 for furniture and heating apparatus, and $35,000 for lot,) cost $185,000. It was occupied for the first time in January, 1869.

PLANS OF CODDINGTON SCHOOL, NEWPORT, R. I.

THE extreme dimensions of the building erected in 1869, for the Coddington School, so called in honor of William Coddington, first Governor of Rhode Island, are 85 feet front by 73 deep, with a central projection in front and rear of ten feet six inches. The foundation, water-tables, window and door caps and sills, are of brown stone, and the walls of Danvers pressed brick. On each of the three floors are four school-rooms (S. R.), each 28 by 32 feet, and 13 feet in the clear, with two clothes rooms 14 feet by 5. Each room is furnished with 56 single desks and chairs from the manufactory of W. O. Haskell & Son, Boston. The inside doors swing both ways, closing without noise. All the doors for leaving the building open outward. Two large triangular shafts (V), communicating with each room at top and bottom by registers, extend from the basement to the galvanized iron chimney tops. The iron smoke-pipes from four furnaces in the basement, and the hot-air pipes, pass through these shafts, and maintain constantly, when the season demands closed windows, a strong upward current. Each furnace heats a tier of rooms.