436 State Horticultural Society. 



OKNAMENTING SCHOOL GROUNDS. 



SOME CLIPPINGS FROM THE BANQUET AT SHAW'S GARDEN. 



By Prof. J. C. Whitten, of the State University. 



Fellow Horticulturists and Gentlemen: 



It is with a good deal of pleasure that I am permitted to mingle with 

 you this evening to partake of these good things which have been given to 

 us, and to listen to the speakers who have preceded me, who have said 

 2iiany things that are instructive and beneficial to us. In considering, 

 this matter of the ornamentation of local school grounds and local church 

 grounds, as has been suggested, it seems to me that there is ample room 

 for all that I may say. I suppose it is not necessary for me to present 

 to the minds of any of you here present interested as you are in horti- 

 culture, the great desirability of making the grounds of our local schools 

 and churches more attractive. They should be made places of attract- 

 iveness to the younger as well as to the older people, whose lives are more 

 or less interlocked with the associations that cluster around these old 

 school houses and these old churches, which we see scattered about, not 

 only over the state of Missouri, but over all the states as far as I know. 

 i^early every one of them is devoid, almost, of beauty. I do not think, 

 as I say, that it is necessary for me to present any arguments to shoAv the 

 desirability of that thing, but a few thoughts have come to my mind 

 with regard to the best method of accomplishing that work. One of the 

 things that appeals to lue almost irresistibly is this: that the very work 

 of Henry Shaw, whose memory we revere, has furnished us with one of 

 the most admirable examples from which to obtain a knowledge of just 

 how to do these things, and I refer to the garden itself. I suppose a 

 great many of you visit the garden and see the magnificent plants, and 

 the vines trained over rocks and particularly the arboretum and the 

 library, and you see the improvements there, and, perhaps, the whole 

 thing impresses you as being a spontaneous and true example for rural 

 school, and rural church buildings. And having, as the chairman has 

 said, had some personal experience of the life there, and study of the 

 work there at that garden, I can speak somewhat from experience, when 

 I say that that of all the places I know it is the best place from which 



