taylor GARDEN WORK IN CONGESTED CITIES 85 



child has a better knowledge of the content of words than the 

 city child has. Thus in the Berlin test, repeated by Dr. Hall 

 and Mr. Olsen, of Sweden, it was found that among 

 children just entering school only 50% knew what a frog is, 

 35% knew a squirrel, 23% knew what dew is, 20% knew a lake 

 and a plow, 11% knew a river. Of the city children only 18% 

 had seen a sunrise, while of the country children 42% had seen one. 

 Earl Barnes made a similar study in London, and discovered 

 that the children of educated and well-to-do parents, who usually 

 live in suburbs with gardens and rural surroundings, have a knowl- 

 edge of words from two to fifteen times as gieat as that of children 

 from the homes of laborers, artisans, and small shop keepers. 



Gardening has also artistic value. I suspect that a child who 

 has cultivated real flowers could hardly be content to fill a vase 

 with artificial flowers. God made the country and man made 

 the town. I should like childi en to feel about growing things as Little 

 Nell did in Dicken's novel. "Her couch was dressed with here and 

 there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she 

 had been used to favor." "When I die put near me something 

 that has loved the light and had the blue sky above it always." 

 These were her last words. Blessed is the child who can be 

 happy with only the flowers or the sea or the field or the forest for 

 companionship. 



There is, thirdly, a social or practical value of nature-study. 



During the Great War we had a vivid reminder of the importance 

 of knowing how to grow plants. The development of home 

 gardens became an economic necessity. The school can therefore 

 minister directly and effectively to the public welfare by teaching 

 children to grow vegetables in the back yard. Millions of acres 

 of productive land are lying idle near our large cities, while the 

 citizens import food at extravagant prices from distant places. 



Finally gardening has a scientific value. Nature is a great 

 teacher when she really comes in contact with the pupil. In legal 

 procedure only first-hand knowledge is admitted as testimony. 

 The kind of knowledge that the public school has been giving to 

 children about nature would be ruled out as incompetent testi- 

 mony in any court of law; for it is second-hand information obtained 

 by listening to a teacher who in turn got it out of a book. "Science 

 is finding out and learning how." The important outcome of real 



