davis] SCHOOL-GARDENS 83 



" I have a little garden of my own. I spade up my garden before 

 I do anything else and then break up the clods, and then make little 

 trenches and then put in my seeds not very deep. It rained once. 

 Mine I planted in lettuce and radishes. We have to cultivate it so 

 that the water could stay in." Teresa. 



This latter is a beautiful little essay. The child had something to 

 say and said it in a simple way. Her writing was poor and her 

 punctuation bad, but she used her writing Pmglish as a means of 

 expression. Clara's writing was very good, her punctuation perfect, 

 but the formal side of expression had been so emphasized that she 

 failed to use her language as a tool for expression. Clara's essay was 

 typical of the whole class with the one exception that I have just indi- 

 cated. Thus through the grades and high school and college the 

 number of Claras is great, but occasionally there is a Teresa who 

 insists on having real experiences and telling about them in a clear 

 way. 



(c). There is little or no incentive for the child to acquire new 

 experiences outside of school hours. The lack of wholesome inter- 

 ests of children outside of school hours leads to forms of activity 

 which often result, especially in groups of boys, in pure vandalism. 

 This fact is at the bottom of a vital social problem, but is generally 

 overlooked. The boy has a tremendous amount of energy and 

 enthusiasm which he must expend. If undirected this energy may not 

 only be expended in the wrong direction, but in taking the wrong 

 direction the boy may become unfit for useful membership in society. 



"In Dayton, Ohio, the boys known as "Slider-town tuffs" made 

 the district about the factory of the National Cash Register Company 

 so unpopular that building lots sold for three hundred to four hundred 

 dollars apiece. Soon after the establishment of gardens the children 

 were so cured of stealing that the same lots sold for from nine hundred 

 to fifteen hundred dollars each 2 ." This is but one illustration of a 

 great many showing the influence of wholesome interests. 



(d). In many places the curriculum utterly fails to give the pre- 

 paration for life that is demanded by the community in which the 

 school is located. This is especially true in the rural districts where 

 the school work is fashioned after the city type. Here more than any- 

 where else is the book-method used. There is little attempt to make 



2 H. D. Hemenway, "Results of School Gardening." Mass. State Board of 

 Agriculture, Nature leaflet, No. 32, p. 6. 



