SECKETAEY'S PORTFOLIO. 407 



Ladies' Literary Club, is that the subject treated of is so akin to the more gen- 

 eral one our society has taken hold of so earnestly, that it can not be kept out 

 after once knowing it has been written : 



It may be that some of you here have, among your memories of childhood, 

 the picture of an old brown school-house, built by the dusty wayside, without a 

 tree to shelter it from the keen winds of winter, or the glaring sun of summer; 

 with its bare, weather stained walls, destitute of all ornament ; its rough benches, 

 with their grotesque jack-knife carvings ; its broken down stove, which always, 

 smoked, and the long lengths of rusty stove-pipe. 



All around and about this building were seen pleasant, comfortable houses, 

 with grassy yards, white fences, green overhanging trees, and shrubs, giving 

 promise of shade, bird songs, and fragrant blooms. Near by the lawns, wide, 

 ample, roomy, convenient, furnished luxuriant abode for the calves, horses, and 

 sheep of the thrifty farmer, who many times a day visited their habitation to 

 see if they were eating, drinking, and resting well. But his children always 

 went out from under the paternal roof through the summer and winter to the 

 little school-house, not large enough by half, and no question was ever asked 

 about their comfort or safety there. Or it may be your early school days were 

 spent in the crowded primary of some city, where in a low, poorly ventilated 

 building were crowded hundreds of children, waiting to receive normal and 

 mental food from the hands of teachers who had three times the amount of 

 school work given them to do than could possibly be done, even if the children 

 were all well nigh perfect, and no attention whatever was needed to keep them 

 in any kind of order. 



And thus it has always been. Our school-houses have not kept pace with the 

 growth of the neighborhoods and the wards in which they were built. Even 

 here in our wide-awake west, the people of our city awoke one morning to find 

 that school-houses but large enough for the children of a village, could not 

 accommodate the children of a city. And rubbing their eyes from their Eip 

 Van Winkle nap, they began to make some modest appropriations. A few 

 rooms were ordered to be annexed to some buildings, and they were straightway 

 filled to overflowing, — a few buildings were ordered built, and they were 

 immediately crowded, and so it has ever continued to be. 



In order to be even comfortable for room next year, we need to have two 

 large primaries, and a large union-school building for west side built this sum- 

 mer. I hope the day is not far distant, when in our city the supply of room 

 will be equal to the demand for it; when we can say, "Now, children, here is 

 room for you all; come, and you will receive a cordial welcome." 



What right have we to talk about a compulsory system of education, until 

 we have room within our school buildings to accommodate all who may wish, 

 who should wish, to come. And when that happy time shall come, why should 

 not children be urged to attend school? Why should not committees be appointed 

 to clothe if necessary, and to gather in, the hundreds who might come to our 

 common schools, as well as to Sunday school? Having much knowledge of the 

 condition of many of the poor families in our city, I can say with truth, that 

 I know the result of some such work would be astonishing to all who might 

 engage in it. 



But my subject was ornamentation of school-houses. And my excuse for 

 this divergence is a sentence from Mrs. Glass' receipt for cooking a hare — 

 "first catch him." 



Before I care to talk much of the ornamenting of our school-houses, I wish 

 room in abundance for all, — I wish for high ceilings, where air can be fresh 



