School hall

“ The buildings belonging to the institution are a church, in which both white and colored people worship together; the Girls' Hall, in which the girls, teachers and matron live; in the rear of this, connected by a passage way, is the dining-room and kitchen; next, to the west, is the school building, containing the chapel, study room and recitation rooms; yet farther to the west of this is the Boys' Hall, in which the principal and his wife live, in charge of the boys. Back of the two last mentioned buildings is the shop where the boys do the industrial work. ”

“ When there was a spare hour between recitations he was supposed to spend it in preparation. If you were a member of either of the school societies you usually ascended to the society’s room on the top floor of School Hall and did the [136] best you could in the presence of from six to twenty others, several of whom would doubtless be playing pool. Otherwise you went into the library or the common room in your dormitory or retired to your study. In Monty’s case, as Morris lay the length of the front campus away from School Hall, he usually affected the library. ”

“ By the side of the models of the school-rooms, where children find school-furniture studied with painstaking care and proportioned to their stature, have been placed the works executed by the school-children themselves of every kind, primary, maternal and professional. These works, in a general way, prove an average aptitude for the industrial arts, and indicate a real taste for beautiful forms. A hall is wholly set apart for the pupils of the special schools. ”

“ Never in any public school have I seen such a splendidly equipped Domestic Science room as the one in the McKinley Park School. Its beautiful open, airy Assembly Hall with its hardwood floors and stage for private theatricals and other social affairs is the acme of modern refinement. ”

“ Morning, afternoon, and evening the city people united with the seminary members in crowding the lecture hall; school-teachers, women’s clubs, college professors and college students, librarians, esthetic clerks, intellectually inclined mill-workers, doctors, lawyers, and church people,—these were in evidence always, for the lecturers’ names, and the three poles of their thought—religion, social service, and letters—made a universal appeal. ”

“ Graduate’s Hall is a massive brown stone building, presenting the general appearance of a feudal castle. It is, in fact, the stronghold of the college, and must be taken several times during the course—it is the examination hall. Next comes the Library, a gothic building with low wings on either side. It is a repository for some one hundred and seventy-five thousand volumes. The Art School is one of the most expensive buildings on the campus. ”

“ The School-house hall, as has been said, is a great, long, high room, with two large fires on one side, and two large iron-bound tables, one running down the middle, and the other along the wall opposite the fireplaces. Around the upper fire the fags placed the tables in the form of a horseshoe, and upon them the jugs with the Saturday night's allowance of beer. Then the big boys used to drop in and take their seats, bringing with them bottled beer and song-books ”

“ It would be so much easier to make the school the people's hall and the boys' club, if those seats could be moved around in human fashion; they might come naturally into human shape in the doing of it. ”

“ Underneath the hall, and close to the great hall staircase, a passage called “seventh-chamber passage” leads into a third quadrangle of smaller dimensions, called “school court,” on the south of which is the school, and on the east the outside wall of the chapel cloisters; along the entire western side of the College buildings, from College Street to the school, extend the buildings of Commoners, (the boys not on the foundation,) the communication of which with College is through a door on the west side of “school court.” ”

“ The rest of the girls of the school were to sit in a darker part of the hall; they were to be dressed in their best. The guests were to occupy a gallery to the left, except those guests who, by Sir John's special invitation, were to sit upon the dais and give their votes in favor of the essays. Desks were provided also in the middle of the hall for the three young competitors, at which they were to sit to answer the questions which were to be asked them by three professors specially sent for from London by Sir John. ”

“ At seven o’clock the students gather by classes at four different parts of the campus: the seniors to sit on their double fence, the juniors to sit on the steps of the recitation hall, the sophomores to occupy the commodious steps of the Assembly Hall, and the freshmen to stand near the library. ”

“ Our overcrowded Girl’s Hall and dining-room of last year prepared us thoroughly to enjoy the room which the enlargement to the building affords. Though neither building is completed, the work is being rapidly pushed forward. A number of our students, who came expecting to enter school at once, were glad of the opportunity to help themselves, and are putting in a month of work upon the buildings before entering, thus somewhat lessening the number enrolled at the opening.
Reports of the summer’s work given by our student teachers at our weekly prayer meeting were very encouraging indeed. ”

“ Description of School—Scobs—Officers—Division of Classes—Prizes and Medals—Long and Short Half—Easter Time—Commoners’ Speaking—Cloisters—Latin Composition—Flogging—Scraping and Shirking Out—Latin Verses—Pealing.
On descending Hall stairs, and turning sharp to the right through Seventh Chamber passage, we enter School Court. The School is a spacious edifice, (built in 1687,) ninety feet long, and thirty-six broad; it may be a handsome building by itself, but, like the adjacent Commoners, is not favourably contrasted with the venerable Gothic buildings of the College, of which they form part. ”

“ The plan is on the central hall system for boys and girls, the hall being 110 feet by 54 feet, and top-lighted. Fourteen class-rooms, each 30 feet by 20 feet, are provided, each divided from the central hall by movable glass screens. The infants' school, lodge, etc., form detached buildings. The total cost was estimated at £16,000. ”

“ Among these eighteen, one, (generally, but not always,) the senior in school, was called the “Præfect of hall,” and was invested with almost absolute power, being looked upon by the “Inferiors” (i.e. those who were not præfects) with something more than a becoming awe and reverence. Some of his principal duties were to take the [29] boys “on to hills,” call names there, pay for broken windows in hall, find the rods, &c. In school he had the seat of honour next to the doctor’s chair, and he always slept in sixth chamber. ”

“ To go on hall, verb. phr. (Winchester) .—To fag: as a breakfast waiter.
1867. Collins, The Public Schools, p. 48. However, as boys came to school better scholars, and were consequently higher placed, fourth form fags grew scarce, and the junior fifth were ordered, as the phrase was, TO GO ON HALL. One champion stood upon his rights, and refused; the indignant prefect proposed to thrash him publicly; the juniors rose in a body and pinioned the prefects. ”

“ Before entering, I must give the reader an idea of the internal arrangement of the noble old Hall, [78] which in beauty and size excels most of the college halls in Oxford or Cambridge. At the east end is a raised dais, on which is the “High table,” where the Dons dine in Election week. Along each side are rows of tables. Those on the north side, allotted to the Præfects, were called, “Tub, Middle, and Junior Mess,” respectively. The others, when occupied, being each presided over by a Candlekeeper, were called respectively senior, second, and so on to junior “End.” ”

“ They had already hidden the bookcase near the hall door and Don’s armchair was only a formless hulk in the gloom. [25] The door to the bedroom was ajar and through it the shadows were silently creeping, for that room was on the back of the building and its one window gave but scant light at sunset time. The study was a comfortable-looking den. There was a big green-topped table in the center, flanked by easy-chairs, and holding a student lamp, an ornamental inkstand, a number of books, and a miscellaneous litter of paper, pens, golf balls, gloves, and caps. ”

“ Weeks stands at the other side of the academy grounds, with the Academy Hall between it and Prince. The three buildings form a row in front of which the well-kept gravel driveway passes ere it disappears to circle the ivy-covered red brick walls of the laboratory at the rear. Across the drive stand the gymnasium and library, the former a modern brick and sandstone structure more ornate than [8] beautiful, and the latter a granite specimen of the unlovely architecture of fifty years ago, charitably draped in a gown of green ivy leaves, which in a measure hides its rude angles. ”

“ Selections from classical authors, ancient or modern, are recited by the Sixth-form boys, who are dressed for the occasion in black swallow-tail coats, white ties, black knee-breeches and buckles, silk stockings, and pumps. Then follows the provost’s luncheon, given in the college hall to the distinguished visitors, while similar entertainments on a smaller scale are going on in the various tutors’ and dames’ houses. At 3 o’clock there is full choral service in chapel. ”

“ Indeed, I was much struck with the great advance made by the native inhabitants of Holsteinborg in Christian and general educational knowledge. Their school is well attended, and reading and writing are carried on admirably.
Very few persons here at home have any true conception of the great advance made in education by these Greenland Esquimaux. It has often astonished me when listening to the apt and ready way in which even children would pronounce some of their extraordinarily long words, some of those words consisting of no less than fifty letters! ”

“ I happened, one day, to get hold of Gray’s Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College,—a poem fraught, it is true, with images of the highest possible beauty, both of thought and of expression, but most of which are certainly far better calculated to beget despondency than hope, by teaching that school days are unavoidably happier than those of after-life. ”

“ After a sleepless night of anticipated delights, I commonly found myself, at sunrise, in a fishing-boat, half a league from the coast, surrounded by congenial spirits—fellows who had no idea of grammar—and who were willing, either from bribery, or from motives of professional sympathy, to consider me as somebody, and not to reckon me as a mere zero, serving no other purpose but to augment the numbers of a school, without having any value in myself. ”

“ The headquarters of the pupil in the school are not in the classroom, as in other public schools. It is the teacher and not the class which is assigned to the room. The teacher remains in the room and the pupils go to him or her, moving about individually from classroom, shop, laboratory, etc., according to the printed schedule card which each pupil holds. The child’s headquarters is the spacious lockers which line the corridors in the basements. ”

“ There should also be one or more rooms for recitation, apparatus, library, etc., according to the size of the school and the number of scholars to be accommodated.
Every school-room should be so constructed that each scholar may pass to and from his seat without disturbing or in the least incommoding any other one. A house thus arranged will enable the teacher to pass at all times to any part of the room, and to approach each scholar in his seat whenever it may be desirable to do so for purposes of instruction or otherwise. ”

“ She was never a prodigy, but she never slighted opportunity or duty. She appeared always well, distinguished at least for faithful preparation and uniform accuracy. And especially was she distinguished for moral excellence. She was the friend and favorite of all. If petty difficulties occurred, Mary Pickard was the peacemaker. Her impartiality, amiableness, kindness to all, and perfect truthfulness, endeared her to the teacher and all the pupils; from several of whom we have had the testimony, that no one ever exerted a better influence upon any school. ”

“ Often, teachers of both art and household arts are perplexed when it comes time for the annual school exhibition. "What can we do," they ask, "that will be properly illustrative of our work and, at the same time, of appeal to the popular imagination?" It is hoped that vegetable candy offers an answer to this question. ”

“ No teacher can do justice to twenty-seven classes per day, and an average recitation period of thirteen minutes is so short as to be almost unworthy of mention.
Most consolidated schools, in addition to the ordinary rooms, have an assembly room in which lectures, festivals, socials, public meetings, and farmers’ institutes are held. Acting as a center for community life, the consolidated school takes a real place in the instruction of the community. ”

“ A striking contrast was this to the kindergarten of the twentieth century!
Our picture shows us a corner of a dame school where a naughty child is in a fit of temper. The rough board walls, with great projecting beams, show how little thought was given to schoolroom adornment in those days. The high bench, without back, is as uncomfortable a seat as one could imagine. ”