Bids for the building and plumbing of the new eight-room brick schoolhouse in the North district will be opened the first of next week. The vote of the town and the plans of the architect call for a building to cost $26,000. Estimates as to heating and ventilation have been furnished, but no contract will be fully determined on or made public until the building and plumbing contracts have been decided.
The town voted to erect this schoolhouse at a meeting held early in July last. The building committee consists of J. W. Conger, chairman, George Harding Smith, secretary, George F. Willett, E. W. Jewett and Thomas A. Houllahan. This committee have worked hard on the matter ever since their appointment and the plans drawn by Architect Alden of Boston and approved by them call for a building which it is believed will meet the growing needs of the district.
The whole aim has been to secure a substantial building. No money will be put in it for mere ornamentation and unnecessary expense will be carefully avoided. The things which have been most carefully studied are substantiality, plenty of available school room for the lower grades of a large and rapidly growing district, and proper heating and ventilation. The committee have been well aware how much criticism will naturally be forthcoming in their case and have endeavored as far as their best judgment guided them to get a good job done for the town. The school building when completed will be in its substantial character and carefully studied appointments the finest school building ever put up in town.
The committee have had in mind all the time the remarks so frequently made in recent town meetings that the town has 600 children under school age and ready in a few years to fill just such buildings as that about to be erected in the North district. It is thought now that the work of building can be begun about the middle of October. The building will probably be completed by next summer. In its size and in its being constructed of brick the building will probably be to some extent a model of other district schoolhouses which the town will in all probability have to build within the next six or eight years. A great deal of interest is therefore taken in the work of the committee.
(All articles originally published in the Norwood Messenger)