PARK AND CEMETERY 
23 
THE IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOL GROUNDS. 
THE WEBSTER SCHOOL CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
What some people call fads at first often develop 
into a necessity. The treatment of school grounds 
has recently engaged the attention of educators and 
enterprising citizens with marked results in the im- 
provement in the neighborhood in which the improve- 
ment has been made. 
WEBSTER SCHOOL, BEFORE IMPROVEMENT. 
One instance of such progressive development is 
displayed in the Webster school, Cambridge, Mass. 
Situated in a residential district, the children being 
by hardy shrubs such as Spiraea, Japanese roses, 
vibernums, etc., which are easy of growth and require 
little care. 
The space immediately adjoining the building was 
divided into small beds edged about with brick, with 
the intention of giving the children an opportunity to 
experiment in the growth of plants. This area at 
jiresent is filled mostly with annuals, which flower 
quite profusely. 
Vines were also planted against the building and 
thus far has relieved the barren effect. At one side 
of the yard is a high board fence against which is a 
narrow, one foot wide strip, filled with herbaceous 
plants and perennials. There are 755 pupils in the 
school and the question of depriving the children of 
play-room is answered by the fact that there is no 
rough play or running allowed during recess time, as 
many of the children in the younger classes were in- 
jured. It is a grammar school of all grades. 
The area allotted to the lawns is small, and yet it 
is regarded with pride by all the children, it being 
the first effort in this direction, and the best gram- 
mar school yard in Cambridge. The principal notes 
no treading of the lawns, neither do the children pick 
the flowers. 
To buy seeds and materials a collection is taken in 
WEBSTER SCHOOL, AFTER PLANTING AND REMOVING FENCE. 
largely of foreign parentage, an effort has been made 
to brighten the surroundings of the school. 
Formerly the school yard was wholly paved with 
brick and an iron fence followed the street line, the 
whole yard presenting a barren waste with the ex- 
ception of a few trees struggling in the brick. 
The principal, Col. John D. Billings, conceived the 
idea of adorning the yard and, enlisting the Cam- 
bridge Park Commission in the idea, they procured 
a plan from their landscape architects for the im- 
provement. 
The iron fence was removed and the brick pave- 
ment between building and street was replaced with 
good soil. Small lawns were called for, surrounded 
the school amounting to between thirty and forty dol- 
lars each year. The care falls to the janitor, who takes 
particular pride in its appearance even during the 
summer months, watering and tending the lawns and 
plants. As an incident of the influence of the change 
in the grounds and the principal, it is w'orthy of note 
that a small square in the vicinity was usually devoid 
of grass and badly mutilated, while now a good lawn 
and growing shrubs greet the eye. 
Taking this effort as an example of what can be 
done to beautify school grounds of small area in 
cities, does it not show the opportunity that could be 
made of the larger country school grounds. Not long 
since a teacher remarked that it would be a great 
