140 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



We must have open spaces where the large trees give way to masses 

 of shrubs and groups of the smaller native trees and their fall coloring 

 of foliage and the winter berries and colored bark. There must be 

 places where there is no planting at all, to distract the eye from lovely 

 distant views. There will be a few groups of the hardier flowering 

 plants here and there in the open ; not too many, because their lives 

 are short and their upkeep expensive. There will be many noble 

 avenues of trees, and let us hope that we may be able to widen the 

 roadway along those avenues. There will be isolated specimen trees. 

 There will be trees planted in groups; trees in rows on one side of 

 the road only. There may be wooded areas adjoining our roadway 

 which can be acquired cheaply and through which winding, unpaved 

 summer drives may be opened to tempt the traveler off the beaten 

 track. There may be adjacent swampy or wet areas of little agri- 

 cultural value which will lend themselves finely to a very different 

 style of planting. Perhaps we may find cheap areas at the inter- 

 sections of roadways where planting may be done in a parklike way 

 and thus improve two roadways with one planting expense. 



We have thus sketched hurriedly and most imperfectly plans 

 which if carried out in spirit would make the highways of our great 

 state an inspiration and a delight to all people, to the traveler from 

 other sections, to the busy man journeying on his daily affairs, to 

 the children on their walks to and from school, and to the whole 

 family on its way to church. 



Mention of our schools and our churches brings us squarely up 

 against the fact that these two institutions, alongside our roads, are 

 in general the greatest offenders in the length and breadth of Illinois 

 in the way of maintaining unbeautiful and even positively ugly con- 

 ditions in the grounds surrounding the buildings which they occupy. 

 The old Puritan idea that religion is an austere and an unlovely thing 

 has been cast aside and we now believe that religion is most beautiful 

 in all ways. Why then should we not surround the edifice where we 

 go to practise its rites with all the beauty that we can reasonably 

 give it? Why should not every schoolyard be planted with flowers 

 and flowering shrubs and these young, plastic minds taught to love 

 such things, and how to cultivate and protect them? Why should 

 not they be taught to protect our beautiful wild flowers ; to pick them, 

 when really desired, carefully and with moderation, instead of ruth- 

 lessly dragging them out of the ground, roots and all, by arms full, 

 to be carried for a little while and then thrown aside Ithat more may 

 be pulled up and destroyed? 



