more
comfortably constructed, better warmed, more inviting in its general
appearance, and more elevating in its influence than any other, that
house should be the school-house.--_Michigan School Report_, 1847.

In considering the means of improving our schools, the place where our
country's youth receive their first instruction, and where nineteen
twentieths of them complete their scholastic training, claims early
attention. It is, then, proper to consider the condition of this class
of edifices, as they have almost universally been in every part of the
United States until within a few years past, and as they now generally
are out of those states in which public attention has of late been more
especially directed to improvements in education; for, before any people
will attempt a reform in this particular, they must see and feel the
need of it. Even in the more favored states, comparatively few in
number, the improvements in school architecture have been confined
mostly to a few localities, and are far from being adequate to the
necessities of the case. Did space allow, I would present statements
made by school officers in their reports from various states of the
Union: for, however wide the differences may be in common usage, in
other respects there has heretofore been a striking sameness in the
appearance of school-houses in every part of the country.

CONDITION OF SCHOOL-HOUSES.--In remarking upon the condition of this
class of edifices, as they have heretofore been constructed, and as they
are now almost universally found wherever public sentiment has not been
earnestly, perseveringly, and judiciously called to their improvement, I
will present a few extracts from the official reports of Massachusetts
and New York, where greater pains have been taken to ascertain existing
defects in schools, with a view to providing the necessary remedies,
than in any other two states of this Union.

_School-houses in Massachusetts._--The Secretary of the Board of
Education of this state, in his report for 1846, remarks in reference to
the condition of school-houses in the commonwealth as follows: "For
years the condition of this class of edifices throughout the state,
taken as a whole, had been growing worse and worse. Time and decay were
always doing their work, while only here and there, with wide spaces
between, was any notice taken of their silent ravages; and, in still
fewer instances, were these ravages repaire