A little boy wanted to show his cousin, who lived some miles away; the shape and size of his house, and how the rooms were arranged. How could he do this?
On a large sheet of white paper, he placed lines of blocks in the form of his house. Then, with a lead pencil, he drew a line on the paper along the sides of the blocks. He next took up the blocks, and there, on the paper, was a plan of his house.
| THE PICTURE SHOWS THE OBJECTS. |
Here is a picture of a schoolroom. We see desks, the teacher's table, a chair, a clock, globe, and two maps, in the picture. The picture shows these objects as they would appear if we stood at the door behind the teacher's table and looked in.
This is a plan of the schoolroom, a picture of which is shown above. You see, the plan and picture are quite different.
| THE PLAN SHOWS WHERE THE OBJECTS ARE. |
The picture shows the objects as we see them before us. The plan shows where the objects are, and their direction from one another.
Now let us see if we can make a plan of the same schoolroom on the blackboard.
The first thing is to measure the sides of the room. We will suppose the two long sides are each forty feet long, and the two short sides each thirty feet long. Now we will draw four straight lines on the board for the four sides. Of course, the lines must be much shorter than the sides themselves, else our plan will be too large.
Make one inch in the plan stand for one foot in the room. So the lines for the long sides will each be forty inches long, and the lines for the short sides thirty inches long.