platform [P], raised seven inches from the floor, a long table or counter [d], made convenient for experimental lectures in Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, &c., having pneumatic cisterns for holding gasses. At [F, &c.] are suitable provisions for the fires used in the preparations of chemical experiments. The pump [p], with a sink like the other, is used exclusively by the pupils in the boys' department.

In all lectures, and other exercises in this room, the girls, entering at [a], occupy the seats on the right of [D], the middle aisle. The boys, entering by descending the short flight of stairs [b], are seated on the opposite side of the room. This may seem like descending to useless particulars, but it is done to show that there are no grounds for the objections sometimes made against having a school for boys and for girls in the same building, where the departments are kept entirely separate, except in exercises in vocal music and occasional lectures. The boys enter the house at the end door [B], which is six feet above the basement floor, and, by a short flight of stairs, they reach the first story at [e].

The three rooms [C, D, F] are appropriated to the department for girls. They are easy of access to the pupils, who, ascending the broad flight of stairs, terminating at [B], can pass readily into their respective rooms.

The course of instruction in the school occupying three years, the room [D] is appropriated to the studies for the first, [E] to those of the second, and [F] to the course for the third year. In each room there are three sizes of seats and desks, and their arrangement in all is uniform. The largest are on the back side of the room. The largest desks are four feet eight inches long, and twenty-two inches wide on the top; the middle size is two inches smaller, and the other is reduced in the same proportions. The largest seats are as high as common chairs, about seventeen inches, and the remaining sizes are reduced to correspond with the desks. The passages around the sides of the rooms vary from two to four feet wide, and those between the rows of desks, from eighteen to twenty-four inches.

On the raised platforms [P, P, P, P] are the teachers' tables [d, d, d, d], covered with dark woolen cloth, and furnished with four drawers each. The registers [f,f,f,f] admit the warm air from the furnace, and the pipes [P,P,P] conduct it into the rooms in the upper story. The passage [b] leads into the back yard, which is ornamented with a variety of shrubbery.

The door leading from the room [F] is used only for teachers and visitors, except when the two departments assemble in the hall.

In the room [C] the boys pursue the studies prescribed for the first year; the other rooms in this department are in the next story.

Pupils ascending from the area [e], by two circular stairways, land on the broad space [a, c], from which, by a short flight of stairs, they reach [A], in the following cut, the floor of the upper story, which is sixteen feet in the clear.

The room [B] is appropriated to the middle class, and [C] to the senior class. The arrangement of the seats and desks are the same as in the other rooms, except they are movable-being screwed to a frame not fastened to the floor, as shown in this cut.

The cross partition [a]-see cut No. 17-is composed of four very large doors, about fourteen feet square, hung with weights in such a manner that

they may be raised into the attic, thus throwing the whole upper story into one large hall-an arrangement by which one room can be changed into three, and three into one, as the occasion may require. On all public occasions, such as Quarterly Examinations, and Annual Exhibitions, the rooms are thus thrown together, and the seats and desks turned so as to face the platform [P], in [E], the principal hall.

Observation and experiment, relative to the modes of warming the public school-rooms, have proved that very large stoves, eighteen inches in diameter, render the temperature of the rooms more uniform and pleasant, and that they are also more economical, both in regard to the amount of fuel consumed, and the amount of repairs required. It is a general principle, that a warming apparatus, containing a large quantity of fuel, undergoing a slow combustion, is better than one containing a small quantity of fuel, in a state of rapid com bustion. The stoves in the small buildings, and the furnaces in the large ones, are constructed on this principle.

In regard to the construction of furnaces for warming public buildings or private dwellings, so much depends upon circumstances, that no specific plan can be given which would be successful in all cases. One familiar with the principles which regulate the motions of currents of air at different temperatures, can, with an ordinary degree of good judgment and mechanical skill, make a furnace in any place, where one can be made at all, that will acsomplish all which the laws of nature will permit.

The following cut is intended to illustrate two plans for a furnace.

In the first, the cold air is admitted at [a], through the outside walls of the building, and descends in the direction described by the arrows, to [r], and thence rises to the top of the furnace, as shown by the arrows. At this place, the cold air diffuses itself over the whole upper surface, about eight feet by ten, and passes down between the double walls of the furnace, in the spaces [t, t], which extend all around the furnace, and rises from beneath, through a

large opening [], into the air-chamber, where it is heated and conducted to the rooms by large pipes, [f,h]. The object of this mode of taking in air is two-fold. In the first place, the constant currents of cold air, passing over the top of the furnace, keep that surface comparatively cool, and also keep the floors above the furnace cool, thus removing all danger of setting fire to the wood-work over the furnace.

In the second place, as the inside walls are constantly becoming heated, and the currents of cold air, passing down on all sides of the walls, become ranfied by their radiation, and thus, as it were, take the heat from the outside of the inner walls, and bring it round into the air-chamber again, at [b]. This is not mere theory, but has been found to work well in practice. On this plan, the outside walls are kept so cool, that very little heat is wasted by radiation.

In the second plan, the cold air is admitted as before; but, instead of ascending from [r] to the top of the furnace, it passes through a large opening, directly from [r], to [P, P, p], representing small piers, supporting the inside walls, and thence into the air-chamber at [b], and also up the spaces [t, t], to the top [s], from which the air warmed by coming up between the walls is taken into the rooms by separate registers, or is let into the sides of the pipes [f, h].

By this plan, the air passes more rapidly through the air-chamber, and enters the rooms in larger quantities, but at a lower temperature. This is the better mode, if the furnace be properly constructed with large inlets and outlets for air, so that no parts become highly heated; otherwise, the wood-work over the furnace will be in some danger of taking fire. The general defects in the construction of furnaces are:-too small openings for the admission of cold air-too small pipes for conveying the warm air in all horizontal and inclined directions and defective dampers in the perpendicular pipes. A frequent cause of failure in warming public buildings and private dwellings may be found in the ignorance and negligence of attendants.

A single remark will close this report, which has been extended, perhaps too far by specific details-a want of which is often complained of by me chanics who are engaged in building school-houses.

It is believed to be best, and, all things considered, cheapest, in the end, tc build very good school-houses-to make their external appearance pleasan and attractive, and their internal arrangements comfortable and convenientto keep them in first-rate order, well repaired, and always clean.

The amount of damage done to school property in this city has uniformly been least in those houses in which the teachers have done most to keep every thing in very good order. The very appearance of school property well take care of rebukes the spirit of mischief, and thus elevates the taste and tha: acter of the pupils.

Respectfully submitted.
N. BISHOP,
Superintendent of Public Schools.

PROVIDENCE, August, 1846.