Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE SCHOOL BUILDING AND GROUNDS Cleanliness. The first requisite for the school building is cleanliness. A schoolroom may be roughly constructed, unadorned, uncomfortable, inconvenient, but there is little reason for its being dirty. If a teacher finds it so, she should see that it is made clean. Of course, it is the janitor's business to see to this work, but if he does not do his work properly, the teacher should look after it herself, till the time when she may be able to bring about an improvement in the janitor service. A teacher often feels it beneath her dignity to do any work of this sort, but it demands a greater sacrifice of dignity to live in dirt than to scrub a bit. If the room is found littered and dusty, the teacher should sweep and dust it. If it is otherwise unsightly, she may organize the children into a brigade for cleaning. This may well be done on the first Saturday, or, if that proves difficult, the work may be done a little at a time after school. Everything that can be improved by soap and water should be looked after. The scrubbing should include chairs and desks, though if these are varnished, soap should not be used in the cleaning. Children may scrape or sandpaper desks and afterwards shellack them, but the work must be carefully superintended. Sandpaper is an efficient aid in removing ink stains from the floor. If thewalls and ceiling are smoked and discolored, it sometimes has to be borne, but a pail of whitewash may be obtained, or a particularly earnest and fascinating teacher may be able to secure from the school authorities paint enough to cover the surface, if she will get it applied. Often it is the labor more than the materials that it is difficult to obtain from the school board. Paint is better than paper or whitewash bec...