MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 143 



scattered by the roadside about the country, designed for and used as places 

 of learning, would excite our curiosity and surprise. 



Small boxes of buildings, devoid of ornament to add to their attractiveness, 

 constructed as cheaply as possible, and placed close to the highway without any 

 yard or play ground, ornamental or shade trees, perhaps a large mud puddle 

 in front during the wet weather in the fall, affording excellent facilities for 

 wet feet when open, and for cracked heads when frozen over, — they seem 

 contrived, outwardly and inwardly (at least those were emphatically so at which, 

 when a boy, I attended school), to be as unpleasant and forbidding as possible. 



The children are crowded together upon uncomfortable seats, the air is 

 close, though not through soundness of the windows, the desks uneasy and 

 covered with the literature which indicates a more frequent use of the jack 

 knife than of pen and pencil, the floor rough, uneven and dirty, the walls 

 showing frequent gaps in the plastering, smoky, uninviting, a place for little 

 but discomfort and torture. 



Happily there are numerous exceptions to this picture. But I have several 

 ideals in my mind which are but the counterpart of actual realities, and of 

 which much more might be said in detail, and although there is constantly 

 great improvement, still it may be safely asserted that in nothing which meets 

 the eye in the country, is the want of taste, or the ghost of the dollar more 

 manifestly prominent than in the school houses and in their surroundings. 



A great deal is being said nowadays of the necessity of farmers making 

 their homes attractive, with a view to inculcating and stimulating a love of 

 farming and of country life in their children. Keep the boys on the farm is 

 the cry, but when the discerning lad sees not only a disregard of the comforts 

 and amenities of life in his own and in his neighbor's homes, and at the same 

 time is debarred from those advantages of intellectual improvements which 

 are afforded by a pleasant and v/ell conducted school, he certainly cannot be 

 blamed for wanting to escape from such depressing influences and surround- 

 ings and seek the towns where opportunities for improvement are common and 

 easy of access. The beautifying of country homes should certainly be stimulated 

 and encouraged, but equally important is it that every country district be pro- 

 vided with a commodious and well furnished school house, rendered still 

 further attractive by ample and pleasant surroundings. We frequently meet 

 with reasonably good school buildings to which the people of the district refer 

 with no small degree of pride, but it is seldom that we find in the surround- 

 ings a matter equally deserving of commendation. A farmer who has enter- 

 prise and ability to provide a suitable dwelling for himself and family, 

 generally realizes the value of providing a pleasant yard, of surrounding his 

 home with shade trees, with flowers and shrubbery; these are features equally 

 desirable in connection with the school house. 



The school house must, of course, be centrally located, for the convenience 

 of all parts of the district. The grounds shall be naturally dry or artificially 

 rendered so, by under drainage, and should be ample in extent ; instead of 

 being one-fourth of an acre or at most one half of an acre, as is now 

 generally the custom, the school grounds should comprise two or three acres, 

 the surface of which should be graded to remove inequalities and provide such 

 a contour as shall secure proper surface drainage together ^ith the most pleasing 

 picturesque effect. Along the margin of the adjoining highway strong-growing 

 shade trees should be set out, elms or maples, and secured against injury by cat- 

 tle, or otherwise, by placing a post upon either side of each tree and connecting 

 them by boards securely nailed to each post upon both sides of the tree. No 



