110 The Transformation of the Rural School 



size of the grounds and should be situated well toward 

 the front. This will provide two fair-sized and well- 

 proportioned playgrounds. Where the grounds are 

 small and contain but one acre, symmetry must yield 

 to utility and the building should be located well 

 to the front and to one side, so as to leave one well- 

 arranged playground. 



4. Improvement of school grounds. In writing 

 of the value of well-arranged school grounds, Pro- 

 fessor Albert Dickens of the Kansas State Agricul- 

 tural College says : 



"This sermon on school ground improvement is 

 one that I have tried to preach for some time. In 

 my judgment, it is the most important and the most 

 difficult of any of the problems in civic improvement. 

 The average country cemetery is sorrowfully neglected, 

 as a rule, but its treatment is careful and generous 

 compared with the school grounds of the average 

 country district. Some day we shall realize that all 

 these factors of environment are formative influences, 

 and shall not wonder that the character formed in 

 surroundings devoid of beauty has hard, coarse, and 

 cruel lines in its make-up. 



"It is an easy matter to picture an ideal country 

 school its clean-swept walk to the road, its ample 

 playground, its windbreak of evergreens, its groups 

 of hard- and soft-wood species, borders of shrubs and 

 beds of bulbs for early spring and perennials for 

 summer and fall. But to get it to find some way to 



