EMBELLISHMENT OF SCHOOL GROUNDS. 221 



2. A good lawn ; 



3. Paths and drive ; 



4. Botanical museum and arboretum ; 

 e. The landscape gardening feature ; 



/'. The botanical feature; 

 g. The experimental feature; 

 h. Effects of the labor upon pupils. 

 4. Educational inducements: 



a. Teachers' recreation ; 



b. Widened influence of tuition ; 



c. Introduction of a factor that shall thread into every study and dis- 



place nothing. 



In connection with this general subject the Secretary asked Mr. J. N. 

 Mitchell, principal of the grammar school at Grand Rapids, to give an account 

 of his efforts at school-yard embellishment with a class of pupils whose 

 age and mode of life would have discouraged most of us at the outset. Mr. 

 Mitchell kindly responded with the following letter : 



flowers at tpie grand rapids central school. 



Central School, 

 Grand Rajnds, January, 1883. 

 Secretary C. W. Garfield: 



Dear Sir, — Last spring, in accordance with your suggestion, I sent to D. 

 M. Ferry & Co., of Detroit, for a school collection of flower seeds. The result 

 has been so gratifying that I believe it to be worth reporting. 



As you Avere once a student here, you no doubt remember the desolate and 

 neglected appearance presented by the east half of the central grounds. The 

 pile of loose sand mingled with the brick and mortar debris scattered here 

 years ago when the house was built. 



The meager vegetation consisted of a few dandelions and many stools of 

 bur-grass or sand-burs as they are called here, the Oenchrus trihidoides, and 

 much tribulation have they caused us, for the burs of this plant, though not 

 fitted by nature for flight, in some strange way are wafted every fall into the 

 rooms even of the second and third stories of our building, and invariably 

 light in the immediate neighborhood of a boy who is about to be seated. 

 Perhaps this fact is one of the points that pricked us on to a determination 

 to have more pleasing surroundings; at all events we proposed to our depart- 

 ment to have a flower bed, and the proposition was immediately accepted. 



The seeds came early. Spring came late. A "committee on shovels and 

 spades" volunteered, and we commenced an excavation near the building, 

 nearly thirty feet square and eight or ten inches deep. 



This done — and willing hands made quick and easy work of it — we sought 

 Supt. Daniels, who had taken much interest in our plans from the start, and 

 through his magic influence saw a quantity of school ashes metamorphose into 

 several loads of good soil, which in due time were dumped into our excavation. 



By the time this was worked mellow and into the desired shape, more ashes 

 had been converted into a good load of excellent turf. Part of this was cut 

 into four inch strips and used for edging, while an eighteen inch strip was laid 

 on the outer margin of tlie outside path extending around the bed* This 

 margin we hope to see widen into a lawn at no very distant day. 



