IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOL GROUNDS. 387 



difficult one because of the summer vacation. The fear we had 

 that that would make things difficult was more than justified by 

 the results. Mr, Nutter's general plan of planting trees and shrubs 

 is well proportioned if put in practice on country school grounds, 

 but the phase of the subject that has come up and appealed to me 

 with the widest scope has been the fact that our country schools are 

 organized on a small basis. The teacher is hired temporarily, the 

 tenure of office is short, and it is difficult to carry on the work that 

 needs executive thought and executive administration, and I have 

 come more and more to believe that the solution of the whole problem 

 lies in the consolidation of the rural schools, I visited some of the 

 Ohio schools, and those schools are taught by superintendents and 

 principals who have been educated in small colleges in Ohio. They 

 have no thought of putting in industrial work. Most of those schools 

 have not a tree or a shrub about them. I believe by consolidating 

 our rural schools, putting them on five or ten acres of land, educat- 

 ing in our normal schools and in our agricultural schools people who 

 shall be especially fitted to teach, locating these schools in many cases 

 in cottages and giving the teachers a longer tenure of office, that 

 we can do a great deal in the way of teaching the children about in- 

 teresting things, about ornamental things, and give them an insight 

 into industrial affairs that make for wealth and better living in the 

 country. The more I have seen of the subject the more I believe 

 we need to work along the line of consolidation. Then four teachers 

 may take the place of seven in the little schools. One or two teach- 

 ers can usually be found to teach horticulture and kindred subjects, 

 and thus give our country people all the advantages that the best 

 schools of the city possess, 



Mr, P. J. Bentz : I have been greatly interested in the subject of 

 the ornamentation and improvement of school grounds. It is a 

 subject that appeals to me very strongly from the fact that I spent 

 the greater portion of my life on the bleak and open prairie. I can 

 see the improvement that is possible by the various methods that 

 have been suggested, especially that of centralization as mentioned 

 by the speaker who preceded me. I am afraid, however, that time 

 is in the far distant future, and I am afraid the present generation 

 will not reap any material benefit from such a plan, but I would like 

 to see the effort made that will produce results and produce them 

 right away. At present I can conceive of no better plan than for 

 each member of the State Horticultural Society to make it his or her 

 special interest to see that their school grounds are improved and 

 planted to trees and shrubs. The question of too many trees does 

 not appeal to us in our region. The trouble is that we have not any 

 trees. We have schools in the western part of the state where there 

 is not a single tree or shrub within the grounds, and, possibly, not 

 within a half mile of the school grounds. 



It seems to me the centralization of the schools would tend to 

 bring about the very thing that I hope will be brought about, but 

 as it appears to me now, I believe it is in the far future, for the 

 reason that the people are not yet ready to centralize. The question 

 has been submitted in a great many communities, but with indif- 

 ferent or disappointing results, and as we cannot bring this about at 



