School Buildings and Surroundings by F. G.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 4, 1907

School Buildings and Surroundings

By F. G.

SPRING has come, and with it must come a spring dress. It is time for us to clean, paint, and plant. Some one has said that soap is the forerunner of civilization. Whether this is so or not, it is true that the best education can not be gotten in unclean and neglected buildings, situated in the midst of barren surroundings. It can not be too often repeated that education is not gotten alone from books. The child is educated more by those unconscious influences which enter into his life than by direct effort in study; both, however, are necessary. He needs to be surrounded continually by an atmosphere of purity and beauty. The food for the mind and soul needs to be even more wholesome than the food for the body. To this end every effort should be made to have the floors, walls, and windows of our schoolrooms immaculately clean. There should be plants and a few good pictures in the room. We have sometimes seen schoolrooms cluttered up with cheap and gaudy pictures and trinkets. These are supposed to please and instruct the child, but as a matter of fact there is nothing neat or artistic about such a room. The child thus receives an education which tends rather to confusion and gaudiness than to order and neatness, and is bound to affect his life and work.

Around our buildings ornamental trees, shrubbery, vines, and flowers should be artistically planted. The care of these flowers and plants is in itself a valuable education for the children and young people. But the delight which comes from the beautiful plants and flowers is continually giving to the pupils a most wholesome education. Flowers can often be grown to financial profit, not only in our advanced schools, but in our church-schools.

The following instruction, which was given by the spirit of prophecy in the establishment of the school at Cooranbong , Australia, has lessons of value for all our schools:—

“Let the lands near the school and the church be retained. Those who come to settle in Cooranbong can, if they choose, find for themselves homes near by, or on portions of the Avondale estate. But the light given to me is that all that section of land from the school orchard to the Maitland Road, and extending on both sides of the road from the meeting-house to the school, should become a farm and a park, beautified with fragrant flowers and ornamental trees. There should be fruit orchards and every kind of produce cultivated that is adapted to this soil, that this place may become an object-lesson to those living close by and afar off.”

F. G.