Fig. 32. Where horses are kept.
Fig. 33. Where boys and girls are taught.
The school-house also, as well as the church, should form a part of the farm above ground. We sometimes build parlors for the pictures, and palaces for the horses and cattle, and neglect the school-house. A city of 12,000 inhabitants in central New York has many expensive stables, some of them works of art. The barn shown in [Fig. 32] is not more than half a mile from the school-house shown in [Fig. 33]. The beautiful stable might serve as a well appointed dwelling house by making a few minor changes. While such buildings are being constructed, the country school-house, the pride of the American, is left to fall into decay; or, if rebuilt, it is located too often on a little scrap of land which may be almost worthless, as though land in America were the most precious of all our inheritance. This school-house is designed to provide accommodations for both farm and city children living in the suburbs. The school-house has not a tree for shade nor a shrub to admire, situated on the commons among weeds and rocks, provided with one dilapidated outhouse unscreened by fence or tree or vine or shrub, while the stable is surrounded with rare trees and shrubs artistically arranged and a smoothly shaven lawn. Are horses and cattle worth more than boys and girls?
To leave the reader to infer that all school-houses are like the one shown would be misleading. A more pleasing illustration is presented in [Fig. 34]. Here the meeting-house, the school-house, and a bit of the farm are shown in juxtaposition, as they were found at the meeting of the roads in a shady grove. Since moral character should be the foundation upon which to symmetrically build intelligence and industry, the church may be treated first. While taking the photograph, I was struck by the inexpensive character of the meeting-house. The outside covering was of plain, matched, vertical boards, but they were kept well painted and therefore looked neat, and the seats were entirely comfortable. I judge that here true, practical religion finds a congenial home, for a long line of comfortable sheds were being built to house the horses during the hours of devotion. Then, too, the sheds will serve a doubly humane purpose, for where the pupils live long distances from the school the horse driven in the morning will have comfortable quarters until the school closes in the evening. A public water-trough near by, kept full from a spring, gave evidence that this little church and the school-house were potent factors in promoting civilization. To the right is seen a lad plowing. Here, then, in this picture is represented the three great corner-stones of civilization upon which to build a symmetrical, beautiful superstructure. To build on either one alone is to insure disappointment; when life is grounded on all three the result is practical religion and intelligence eventuating in a better understanding of the complex soil and the interrelations of nature’s modes of action. It means steady and effective employment, the abandonment of nomadic life, and in lieu thereof a permanent home and an abundant supply of the necessaries and comforts of life. The Bible, the school book, and the plow should all be engraven and intertwined in our modern civilization.
Fig. 34. School house and church at the corners.
So far the general characteristics, fitness, durability and beauty of the country farm house have been discussed and illustrated, together with such public buildings as are directly related to rural life. But having discussed the size, best proportions, and most suitable materials for the house, and having put them into visible form, the building may be made hideous and unnecessarily expensive by careless or ignorant treatment of external details.
Fig. 35. The sway-back house.