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No. 3,) is divided into four school rooms, four clothes closets, two stairways, and a large corridor in the center. The arrangement is admirable alike for convenience and economy of space. Pupils enter the school rooms through the clothes rooms, each of which is well lighted and ventilated by means of a window.

Each school room has accommodations for one teacher and sixty pupils. Each pupil is provided with a separate chair and desk. The furniture for teachers and pupils is substantial, convenient and handsome.

The pupils sit facing the platforms of the teachers, and the arrangement is such, that while in their seats, they do not in any case receive the light directly in front.

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FIG. 1. PLAN OF BASEMENT.
A. Play Rooms.

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Front Entrance.

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FIG. 3. PLAN OF FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD FLOORS.

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The fourth story, (Plan No. 4,) contains two school rooms similar to those already described, and a hall for public occasions and general purposes of the whole school, furnished with movable settees. This story is fifteen feet in the clear.

The warming apparatus consists of four hot-air furnaces. The smoke pipes are of cast iron, and pass up through and warm the corridors. This arrangement is rendered practicable by locating the furnaces in the center of the basement, and is found more convenient and economical than previous plans.

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The means of ventilation consist of a separate ventiduet of wood, leading from each school to the roof. Here they are brought into two groups, at the opposite ends of the building, each of which is surmounted with one of Emerson's Ejectors. The transverse section of each ventiduct is about fourteen inches square. In each room there is a sliding register near the ceiling, and another near the floor opening into the ventiduct. The building has seats for 882 pupils. The cost of the house and furniture was Cost of lot

Total cost

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FIG. 4. PLAN OF FOURTH FLOOR.

A. Hall furnished with settees for general exercises.

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PLANS AND DESCRIPTION OF THE STATE NORMAL UNIVERSITY AT BLOOMINGTON ILLINOIS.

The Illinois State Normal University, is located at Bloomington,—that city, and McLean county, of which Bloomington is the county-seat, having appropriated $70,000, and one hundred and sixty acres of land, estimated at $70,000, to secure the local advantages of such an institution. The following brief history of the institution, is abridged from an article in the Illinois Teacher, for October, 1857.

The State Normal University owes its existence to a deep-seated conviction of the want of more well-instructed teachers for the free schools of Illinois. The question of establishing a school of some kind to supply this want, had been discussed by the leading educators of the State for several years; but the project of establishing a distinct and separate Normal School, first assumed a definite form at the annual meeting of the State Teachers' Association, at Chicago, in Dec. 1856.

After a protracted debate, a resolution unanimously prevailed, asking the Legislature to make an appropriation for the establishment and maintenance of a Normal School, and Messrs. WRIGHT, WILKINS and ESTABROOK were directed to lay the subject before the Legislature, on behalf of the Association. The late Superintendent of Public Instruction, Hon. N. W. Edwards, in his Report to the Legislature for 1856, recommended the establishment of such a school, and aided the project by his presence and influence. HoN. WILLIAM A. POWELL, the new Superintendent, labored heartily for the enterprise. These gentlemen were met by a liberal spirit on the part of both Houses, especially the Educational Committees, and an act was drafted, discussed and passed, establishing and endowing a NORMAL UNIVERSITY, and creating a State Board of Education, under whose control it should go into operation.

The act provides that the avails of the Seminary and University funds, ($300,000) shall be appropriated for the support of the Institution, but no part thereof can be used in purchasing a site or erecting buildings. The Board were instructed to locate the University in that city or town, accessible, and not otherwise objectionable, which should offer the greatest donation. It was understood that the central portions of the State were "accessible," and there competition ran high. At first almost every enterprising town in the interior took the initiatory steps toward making a bid; but some time before the day for opening the proposals, it was whispered round that Bloomington and Peoria were ahead of all competitors. Most of the smaller towns declined to submit their proposals, and the contest virtually lay between the two cities. The Board of Education, in a body, visited these points and examined the sites offered. The site at Bloomington consisted in two tracts of rolling prairie, one of 56, the other of 104 acres, connected by a narrow neck and lying about a mile and a half north of the city, near the junction of the railroads. The site at Peoria consisted of fifteen acres of land lying on the bluff, just back of and overlooking the city, and affording, doubtless, the most varied prospect in the State.

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