Hints on Rural School Grounds 



279 



to allow of play-grounds. It should be hollow, — well planted on 

 the sides, open in the interior. The side next the highway 

 should contain little planting. The place should be a picture, not a 

 mere collection of trees and bushes. Fig. 25 shows what I mean. 

 As seen in the picture (Fig. 25), this stjde of planting seems to 

 be too elaborate and expensive for any ordinary place. But if 

 the reader will bear with me, he shall learn otherwise. 



25. — A picture, of which a schoolhouse is the central figure. 



Keep the center of the place open. — Do not scatter the 

 trees over the place. They will be in the way. The boys will 

 break them down. Moreover, they do not look well when 

 scattered over the whole area. When an artist makes a picture 

 with many people in it, he does not place the persons one bj^ one 

 all over his canvas. He masses them. Thereby he secures a 

 stronger effect. He focusses attention, rather than distributes it. 



The diagrams (Figs. 26, 27), taken from Bulletin 121, make 

 this conception plain. The same trees and shrubs can be used 

 to make either a nurser}' or a picture. But it is more difficult to 

 make the nursery, and to keep it in order, because the trees 

 grow one at a place in the sod, and they are exposed to acci- 

 dents. 



