ALCOTT, William A. - Essay on the Construction of School-Houses, to which was awarded the prize offered by the American Institute of Instruction, August, 1831.

Boston, Hilliard Gray &c 1832. Octavo disbound; 66pp, two full page plans. Some spotting or browning but a pretty good copy. ¶ The first American work devoted to school buildings and their design. Alcott is not celebrated in architectural history, after all he was no architect but an educator, reformer and pamphleteer. But "the characteristic form of schoolhouses was established with the 1832 publication of William A. Alcott's 'Essay on the Construction of School-Houses'. Alcott stressed the importance of light, fresh air, and space in his designs." (Doggett and Wilson). Alcock was not dogmatic about the style of the building but he was about everything else, the site and landscaping, the timber for the floorboards and blackboards, the size and placing of each student's book box, the placing of coat pegs. All was to be healthy, rational, beneficial and beneficent. The American Institute of Instruction was itself new; this was the beginning of a new movement for universal education. Over the next few years these ideas spread, often in the briefest form: Alcock's plan and key. In 1839 the superintendent of schools in Michigan submitted Alcock's plan with few modifications to the legislature and this was in turn reprinted in a Connecticut journal.

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