3. _Size and adaptation of grounds._--The school grounds should contain at least three acres, and five acres would not be too much. While the cities are cramped for playgrounds and purchase them only at a high cost, the latter can be secured in the country in sufficient size and at a relatively small expense. Let it be kept constantly in mind that the school grounds should be adapted for play, that they should afford a protection from winds, and that they should also be attractive. They should likewise be adapted for school gardening and experiments in agriculture. For the purpose of play, the breadth should exceed the depth where there are separate grounds for boys and girls. Where the playground is large, the building should be centrally located with relation to the 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, Professor Albert Dickens of the Kansas State Agricultural 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 overcome the serious obstacles--is worthy the attention of statesmen and club women. "Nearly every district has made an attempt. That is one of the hard things to forget--one of the reasons so many districts fear to try again. They had a spasm of civic righteousness--an Arbor Day revival--and every patron dug a hole in the hard, dry ground; every child brought a tree, some of which were carried for miles with the roots exposed to sun and wind--and then they were planted and, in some cases, watered for the summer; and the days grew warm and the weeds grew high; and by the next fall the two or three trees yet alive were not noticed when the director went over with his mower the Friday before school opened; and so ended that attempt at a schoolyard beautiful.