have the ear of the public.

There is still another, a growing movement it seems to be, one more distinctly social I might say, which we have perhaps all noticed at times. It is a revival of that old yet ever new desire to "flock together;" this we did with much profit and pleasure, as I remember quite well, in earlier days, for instruction, entertainment and social intercourse of week-day evenings or upon Sundays. While this good old habit is slowly, perhaps too slowly, reviving, we are steadily becoming a more numerous people, and also more diversified in taste, than formerly.

The remark I make about getting together applies to the neighborhood people in general though it also includes those doing upper grade school work. It is, as I suppose, the social instinct re-expressing itself in spite of a too long reign of selfish impulses, our tremendous

which I believe

physical prosperity has fostered.

After all, then, perhaps, very much of our new thought is merely a reawakening of ourselves to the old time. satisfactions.

Spelling bees-blessed be their reincarnation- socials, "exhibitions," clubs, both literary and religious, lectures, moving pictures, domestic science, elements of agriculture and carpentry-in short any and all wholesome ways of expressing neighborhood life we now more than ever feel the pressure to provide for.

In this field of current human progress the progressives appear, as in

It is perhaps the long deferred social and spiritual awakening at last setting in to regenerate us. The rising generation for whom we build must needs undo many things this generation has done, and do many things they have left undone.

If the common schools are the hope of our country-and they are—this regeneration needs now to be remembered in any reasonable expense to make the schools more efficient.

The time to especially provide for these things is, of course, when such an idea as consolidation is being realized, and that, too, before it is a grown-up; for while it is growing, we have the opportunity presented to us of housing everything of the sort under one roof, or at least of grouping them on one Acropolis in the civil township.

And we have the money-blessed be Mammon-plenty of it, and to spare, these prosperous times, to provide the new buildings and equipment required.

We are now coming under the mandate of a wise law, as I see it a little tardy, perhaps-governing the erection of Indiana's future school buildings; this has been brought about largely under the leadership of one Dr. Hurty --of pretty stirring memory in these parts and seconded by the Department of Education.

And, by the way, this is but one of the many recent victories in our state won by the medical profession. They win battles, because they have a state board, well generaled and disciplined, the expense of which is borne by the

state.

The way is then already well blazed for us, and the opportunity presented, as never before, for architects and school officials to solve, perhaps, the problem of their lives.

But enough of these preliminaries; we have sculled into the main current at last and I now run up the sail.

The real purpose I have in mind is to exhibit and discuss a new embodiment, architecturally, of these new and advanced ideas.

We must still put new wine into new bottles.

It is only the more moderate limits of concentration, however, that are herein dealt with, in which case no neighborhood is required to jump over an intermediate one, to consolidate; moreover this plan will, I think, about set the average limit of a magazine article.

I incline to doubt, any way, whether consolidation in rural communities, beyond, say what five rooms will accommodate, can, with present average conditions, fairly be defended against the inconvenience of long hauls, which inconvenience begins to be felt at about this limit.

Of course, as roads improve, hacks become better, and automobiles become cheaper and safer, then the inconvenience becomes less.

If some live community, wanting to share laurels with us of old Montgomery, will now start the converging avenue fashion—that is, the running of roads diagonally, where need be-inward from the township boundaries to its middle section, or there abouts, we might more easily bring the entire school population to one point.

Some townships in the state, despite

our rectangular roadway system, are, as I intimated in the beginning, doing it already; but it is, I think, pretty safe to infer that a good deal of unprinted, not to say unprintable, censure, goes on daily out near the township boundaries, and so a more moderate concentration in which a township would have two to four buildings, is generally better.

The plans and elevations which illustrate the text, the foregoing part in a general way, of course, and this latter part in particular, are from sketches personally designed and drawn by the writer.

They are intended to meet the new requirements for a "Model TwoRoom," "Three-Room," "Four-Room," or a "Five-Room" house; beyond that the series will be developed later.

I hardly need to remind Hoosier school masters-in whose shoes I once happily strode that we have long been sore stricken with numerous architectural aberrations going under the seductive name of "Model school buildings;" and even yet, the trowel, the saw and the hammer are fashioning idols of the old dispensation.

I may have occasion later to say more about such unstudied plans. They were born and bred, for the most part, in carpenter shops and developed from day to day as the buliding went up, and so, like Topsy, "jist grow'd." These immature plans involving no professional service, can of course be bought very much as you buy leftovers or hand-me-downs at a bargain counter. There are mountains of this moth-eaten trash in the state.

An artificial value is often given these plans by the simple expedient of adding the nom de plume "Architect"

to the name of the vender. This, by the way, is one of the sins of commercialism we enjoy as the result of not having an architects' license law.

But I pass on with a closer regard for my theme.

In each of the accompanying designs, as is plain to see, the light is all admitted from the left side of the pupils, a matter now become orthodox, and, at any rate, commanded by law. If possible, the building is so placed in reference to the points of the compass that this will be from the north; next in preference, I think, would be to admit the light from the west, as in that case, the sun, when shining in the afternoon, is both behind and to the left of the pupils.

Adjustable blinds can be provided for these west windows, to be used in case of necessity. For the windows in the north side they are, of course, unnecessary.

No matter which of the four points of the compass the building is to face, the light in the principal rooms can all be taken from the north or west and without doing any violence to architectural propriety; it merely requires a little bona little bona fide original thought in planning. As a matter of course the way the building is to face must be known before hand, and it must be designed accordingly. For want of time and space, only the solutions for the preferred frontings of the buildings are herewith given.

I don't believe any one now seriously questions the soundness of the rule. admitting light from the left side only. of the pupils; nor, that being the case, do I believe any one would question the wisdom of a north or a west light in preference to admitting it from the

east or south, as in these latter cases it is, of course, more or less in the face of the pupils a portion of the time each day.

If it seem desirable that the smaller pupils, between recesses, should occasionally have a sun-bath in doors-for we love to think of them as plants"olive plants," if you please—the small recitation room affords the opportunity, that is, for the comparatively few days the direct light is, with us, available during the school year.

A partition window, say four feet or such a matter, above the floor, will give the teacher, when passing near it, an easy view from the adjoining school room into the improvised sun garden, to see that the "olive plants" do not turn topsy turvy too often.

It is never a very difficult matter to find a location that will admit of placing the new building or designing it, so as to insure proper light.

But if it must face the wrong way in deference to a clamorous "pull" for the wrong place, the light can be taken from the right way in spite of it, and it need not increase the cost of the building more than say five per cent. if any at all.

The ratio of the glass area to the floor area in the accompanying studies. is never, as a rule, less than one to five, which is well within the mandate of the law; but in the case of the "Assembly Room" it is perhaps well to go the limit, which is one to six, for by doing so we can, of course, obtain a greater seating space.

The blackboards are, in general, one in front of the pupils and one to their right; the cloak cabinets I place, if possible, against the rear wall of the room behind the pupils where they can

always be under the immediate eye of the teacher; they are provided with doors, opening out into the room, and swinging, say six inches above the floor, that the air from the room may be drawn in from below and so ventilate them.

The air in these cabinets is changed every few minutes by the ventilating system, but no air can pass from them back into the room, as the draft is the other way.

Where these cabinets stand out in the room, as they may do, instead of being set back into the wall, they are capped over, at a height of about seven. feet above the floor, with matched flooring forming a broad shelf; this may serve for the display of statuary or of craftsmanship by the pupils.

Additional cloak cabinets-and, only if absolutely necessary-are provided at one side or other of the general hallway, and never in some mischiefbreeding nook; but I think the cloak cabinets should always be placed in the back of each separate room, to minimize confusion and to banish, so far as possible, all temptations to pilfer.

The Germans, I believe, are ahead of us in this matter.

The ceiling heights of the rooms are from thirteen to fifteen feet in the main story, and ten feet in the basement.

Each building here shown is provided with one room much larger than any other and is designated in the plans as an "Assembly Room.”

While this idea is not altogether new in country districts it is by no means very common. This room, as a rule, should have the highest ceiling, say fifteen feet at least; and it can be so made without disfiguring the building

in the least, especially in the larger one shown; the construction at the exterior cornice line of the larger building should be such as to allow these windows to run up, say two feet, higher than the windows in the small rooms; in fact, the main cornice line can be lifted up as much as the windows are lengthened.

It is always better, I think, to avoid sky-lights on account of possible leakage around them.

The term "assembly" I here use in a broad and flexible sense.

This room is, in fact, to be used as a regular school room for the upper grades far more than as an auditorium for the general neighborhood.

It is the great study room, and while one class is sent out of it into the small recitation room or rooms, the principal teacher or some assistant remains with the main body of pupils hearing one of the grades recite. Almost any town school principal, especially where there is a high school, is familiar with this now widely accepted practice in school economy.

In this way the so-called "two-room" house is virtually a "three-room house, and the "five-room" house is the "three-room" house enlarged to liberal proportions, as a study of the cuts will verify. It is the two small corner rooms next the front which are en

larged until they have grown to the size of recitation rooms, and this may be done by merely widening the building.

Thus, we can, up to this limit, at any rate, actually do away with a twostory solution-a thing which certainly almost any one will agree ought to be done whenever possible. It is still the fashion, I believe, to think of a

school building proposed for four or five teachers, as calling for two stories; as if it were cheaper to so make it, or that no other solution were possible.

But I have demonstrated, by comparison in a number of cases, that even the matter of economy, all things considered, is, in this case, pretty safely on the side of the one-story building; and from all other considerations it is, I think, incomparably better.

In the "three-room" house here laid out-shown herewith as enlarged for five teachers there are always the two extra recitation rooms besides the two small basement rooms under them; these additional basement rooms provide the floor space for manual training, domestic science, and the like; or two of the basement rooms may be used as play rooms for the smaller children, one for girls and one for boys. Of course, with the foregoing enlargement, we might better say, perhaps, that we have an out-and-out five-room building.

The "Assembly Room," as I call it, should, in my judgment, have the school desks fastened down to loose slats in place of being screwed into the floor, placing them three in a row, though I have seen them five in line, one behind the other, tandem fashion. The ends of the floor slats on this plan are made to interlock, one end being open like a "bootjack"-see ancient relics in your attic-and the one next ahead of it having a saw tooth cut to fit back into it closely.

When desirable to bring in folding chairs, that the seating capacity may be greatly increased, doubled at least, for lectures and evening gatherings, these school desks are then easily and quickly carried out of the way, three in

a group, to make room for temporary chairs, and are as easily brought in again, by the larger boys, who are delighted to perform the service.

Each of these desks could be provided with lock and key-and perhaps they ought to be-to insure greater security to the properites in them, inasmuch as they are to be moved out at times.

The statute now requires the windows to be at least four feet above the floor, and a good rule it is.

Advantage is taken of this in the accompanying studies to place a long shelf, permanently constructed, under the windows-of the assembly room, at least, say three feet above the floor, upon which are placed a row of glassfront, dust-proof bookcases, one book high, for the holding of reference and other books; such cases are advertised. in almost any periodical.

Having been an old school master myself-which I like to refer to once in a while I should, as taught by that experience, want the pupils to stand during the brief times they would be occupied with these reference books.

It is obviously a relaxation to them. So long as there would not be books, or apparatus, enough to fill up the full length of this shelf, I would place potted plants or other decorative objects in the vacant intervals.

In general, the assembly room is so constructed that a temporary stage could be erected in one end of it and in such a manner that the audience and players have separate exits; indeed, a permanent stage with scene shifting devices may be included, though this would involve a modification in plan, and it would, of course,

cost more money.