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dating from 40 to 120 children. These plans lithographed,
and the specifications for building have been sent to each
County, thus exhibiting to the people pictures of neat, cheap
and commodious houses, and enabling Commissioners to have
the work done at the lowest rates consistent with durability
and convenience. Elevations and ground plans of the build-
ings will be found in the appendix.

The reports of the County Boards make a lamentable
exhibit of the condition of School houses. The houses are a
disgrace to the County and a gross outrage upon children.
In some districts hired rooms are used. More than half the
houses are in ordinary or bad condition, and many so dilapi-
dated or inconveniently located as not to be worth repairing.
Will the General Assembly disregard this fact, and again
adjourn without devising plans for relief? Certainly not.

In a matter of such grave importance immediate action is
required to secure the necessary funds. The money ought
not to be solicited as a bounty to the State, but raised by a
tax upon the property of the County to which the house will
belong, because by its erection the value of all kinds of prop-
erty will be enhanced.

This topic is so entirely practical, and commends itself so
directly to the consideration of parents who regard the health
of their children, to citizens who know the importance of
having school work well done, to every community which has
a reasonable pride in its character and position, that not many
years can pass before ample provision is made to meet exist-
ing wants.

Whatever is done must, in the main, be done by taxation.
We cannot, nor is it right, to depend upon individual or
neighborhood liberality. This may suffice for the erection of
parochial and private school houses, but not for schools to be
open to all the children, and governed by the local or general
Public Law

It is pleasing to record instances of enlightened sentiment
and public-spirited liberality on the part of citizens in pro-
viding school houses. In some of the counties they have
united to build the house, taking a small appropriation from
the public money and furnishing the balance by donation, or
they have advanced the entire amount, waiting the enact-
ment of a law by which the money can be collected and re-
funded. In one district we have the landable example of a
gentleman erecting a first class school house and presenting
it to the Board of Commissioners for the use of the Public
School.

While writing I have the gratifying intelligence from the
School Commissioners of Prince George Coiinty, that George
W. Riggs, Esq., of Washington City, has built a neat, sub-
stantial and commodious school house near Bladensburg, well