STATE POMOLOGlCAIv SOCIETY. II5 



nection with the common schools, but also in connection with 

 normal schools, technical schools, social settlements and factories 

 in many different parts of the country. 



I mention garden work in connection with social settlements 

 and factories. Strictly speaking this is not school garden work 

 but so closely is it allied with it that no clear distinction can be 

 made. Children, in most cases school children, do the work and 

 in nearlv every instance it is so conducted as to be educational. 



So favorable has been the impression created by the successful 

 experiments made in school garden work in this country that 

 many dift'erent institutions and organizations are now either 

 undertaking to promote the work or are seriously considering 

 the problems connected with it. The lack of teachers capable 

 of conducting work of this kind has led to the introduction of 

 school garden work in many of our leading normal schools. 

 State departments of agriculture, State agricultural colleges and 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture are devising means for 

 promoting the work. The latter is now making arrangements 

 to have school gardens in full operation at the Louisiana Pur- 

 chase Exposition next year. Last year the American Park and 

 Outdoor Art Association devoted one afternoon session and part 

 of an evening session to the consideration of school gardens, 

 and during the ensuing year two committees of the association 

 were at work preparing reports on different phases of the move- 

 ment which were presented at the Buffalo convention of that 

 association in July, 1903. On the same evening that these 

 reports were being presented the National Educational Associa- 

 tion was devoting an entire session to papers and discussions on 

 school gardens. 



Educators everywhere are coming to see that the child must 

 be given something to do as well as to study ; they recognize the 

 value of the "laboratory method." The school garden is a labo- 

 ratory — a nature study laboratory. It does for the children out- 

 of-doors what the chemical laboratory, the carpenter shop and 

 the kitchen laboratory do indoors. It trains the eye and the 

 hand along with the intellect, and at the same time gives pleas- 

 urable employment and physical exercise in the open air and 

 sunshine. To many pupils in the city it opens up a whole new 

 world : Nature's life romance, a divine pastoral abounding in 



