HARVEY] SCHOOL GARDENING 181 



evils which are a serious burden upon us all. If we could secure 

 universal adoption of school gardening throughout the eight 

 grades of our public schools in a few years, our prisons and houses 

 of correction would decay from want of use. 



( 4 ) Garden work results in developing the faculty of co-opera- 

 tion. The establishment of villages in the agricultural stage of our 

 social development soon resulted in a division of labor for economi- 

 cal reasons. There soon appeared the tinker, the tailor and the 

 candle-stick maker. Each individual of that society now becomes 

 more dependent upon the other members of the community. As 

 civilization progresses the division of labor becomes more minute. 

 The little shoemaker gives way to the gigantic shoe factory and a 

 hundred hands become linked to a single process where one was 

 sufficient for its accomplishment before, but with a gain in both 

 quantity and quality of product. Never has society been so 

 complex and so intricate as it is to-day. Reflecting this we find its 

 members more inter-dependent than ever before. Inter-depend- 

 ency forces the necessity of co-operation and the future holds 

 nothing more certain than further individual helplessness. Success 

 then under this economic condition seems to vary directly with 

 one's ability to co-operate with his fellow-man. "Science and 

 co-operation play leading roles in each day's business," however 

 great, however small. 



In the garden both of these accomplishments are unconsciously 

 attained. The child is trained in science and partially acquires its 

 method of approach and its attitude of mind. In thus training the 

 mind to an exact and impartial analysis of facts Nature-Study and 

 School Gardening furnish an education pre-eminently fitted to start 

 the child on the road to sound citizenship. It is not so much the 

 material but the method of its consideration. 



Garden work offers, through the organization of Children's 

 Garden Clubs under the auspices of the School Garden Association 

 of America, unusual opportunities for training in co-operation; a 

 training sadly needed to offset the usual anti-social competitive 

 system which permeates our grade schools. Co-operation es- 

 pecially functionates in the establishment of comradeship in a 

 common undertaking, in the stimulation of initiative and in the 

 production of leadership. Personality is here unmasked and 

 common sense and industry reach their proper valuation. 



Co-operation is the modus operandi in the business of the world. 

 Why not initiate our children in our institutions which proudly 



