OUR RURAL SCHOOL GROUNDS. 



ANY of our affiliated horti- 

 cultural societies are en- 

 deavoring to interest the 

 children of the public schools 

 in floriculture. They give bulbs or 

 flower seeds to them and offer prizes for 

 the best results. One teacher we knew 

 who encouraged his pupils to bring pot 

 plants to the school, and taught them 

 how to care for them and above all to 

 love them for their beauty and their fra- 

 grance. • 



But as a rule our rural schools are an 

 object lesson teaching neglect and dis- 

 taste for ornamental horticulture. The 

 school building itself is unsightly, and 

 often shabby for want of paint. The 

 school yard is enclosed by an ugly 

 snake or stump fence, or by a board 

 fence, half down, and gates and posts 

 that stand awry. The extent of the 

 grounds may be large enough to meet 

 legal requirements but they are bare of 

 tree, shrub, and sometimes even grass. 

 Arbor Day is a move in the right direc- 

 tion, and we are pleased to credit our 

 authorities with this enactment, which 

 however is too often taken as an 

 ordinary holiday, and the school grounds 

 are no better after than before it. 



Prof. Bailey, of Cornell University, 

 Ithaca, U. S., has devoted Bulletin 160 



to Hints on Rural School Grounds, and 

 is thereby aiming to cultivate the taste 

 of the public for better things, so that 

 they will demand a different, state of 

 things and make the grants to schools 

 conditional on such improvements. 



Quoting a report he says : " If chil- 

 dren are daily surrounded by those in- 

 fluences that elevate them, that make 

 them clean and well-ordered, that make 



Fig. 1562. — Where Children are taught. 

 An actual example. 



Fig. 1663. — A suggestion in planting. 



them love flowers, and pictures, and 

 proper decorations, they at last reach 

 that degree of culture where nothing 

 else will please them. When they grow 

 up and have homes of their own, they 

 must have them clean, neat, bright with 

 pictures, and fringed with shade trees 

 and flowers, for they have been brought 

 up to be happy In no other environ- 

 ment." 



Regarding the school building Prof. 

 Bailey says : 



" The school building is generally 

 little more than a large box. It has not 

 even the charm of proper proportions. 

 A different shape, with the same cost, 

 might have made an attractive building. 

 Even a little attention to design might 

 make a great difference in the looks of 

 a schoolhonse ; and the mere looks of a 

 schoolhouse has a wonderful influence 

 24 



