158 SEVENTH REPORT. 



originally none too large, and in games of foot-ball, and other chasing games, it was nat- 

 ural for a boy to grab the tree as he ran round and give it a shake as he attempted to 

 steady himself while he ran. This was, of course, hard on the trees. 



The regular garden for flowers, weeds and the like was placed along a fence on its south 

 side. Then came the work. The ground was almost all sod, and the digging was tre- 

 mendous. All this fell to the teacher as the only person connected with the school who 

 was physically capable of digging it up. The pupils helped in raking, in the planting of 

 seeds, in the watering and other minor details. 



This space was also a serious inroad upon the playground, and I often regretted it. As 

 for barnyard manure, we were not able to secure any, though, of course, had this planting 

 been kept up for several years, it would be required. During the time of planting, and for 

 some time afterwards, the students took a real interest in the Inatter, and aided materially 

 in pulling weeds, and, to a small extent also, in cultivating the beds. I might note that 

 grass is a hardy weed in a bed recently dug from sod. To mention this may seem a small 

 thing, but it was really no unimportant matter, for it seriously affected the garden for one 

 year out of the three. We neglected to collect seeds the first year and we were therefore 

 dependent upon what we could purchase from the stores. The second year we collected 

 seeds of wild plants and weeds, and from these we had the best success. Pupils were 

 more interested in growing canada thistles and burdocks and such plants than in growing 

 flowers. I believe there is more, much more, educative value in such a garden than in a 

 garden in which nothing but what are commonly called flowers are grown. 



The main difficulties were serious. The pupils were too young to do the work, and they 

 had not sufficient interest to abandon play for this sort of labor — of hoeing, watering, 

 w^eeding and the like. It encroached upon both the space for play and the time for play. 

 Only small boys attended in the summer. This might be said also of girls. Then the 

 sunimer vacation nearly killed the outside gardens. Pupils have too much of this sort 

 of thing at home — cutting weeds and thistles, hoeing and the like. Change of teachers 

 would probably kill what was left. 



In an ungraded school, such as a rural school is, there is always a lack of time, and pupils 

 can not be expected to remain after school hours to do this work. They are not to be 

 blamed. Then, lastly, all the work falls upon the teacher, and he may not have the neces- 

 sary knowledge of plant life to develop a garden that would be of much interest in any 

 school section. Schools are changing rapidly in the personnel of the teacher. In my boy- 

 hood days a female teacher was unheard of. In my teaching (rurual school) days, there 

 were a few. Now the male teachers in that community, or district, are not numerous. 

 As I pointed out before, the attendance has decreased very much. In regard to a few 

 schools which I know had attempted school gardens, I may say that as soon as the female 

 teacher came on the scene the garden disappeared. The fences became dilapidated be- 

 cause the trustees left that matter to the teacher as they had been accustomed to. The 

 grounds showed also that some change had been brought about, liecause sticks, stones and 

 rubbish had been allowed to collect here and there over the yard. 



In several places in the same township, and in two or three of the neighboring town- 

 ships, attempts had been made to use part of the grounds in a way to help beautify the 

 premises and to encourage the children in the cultivating of plants. I am informed that 

 the advent of the female teacher sounded the dying knell of those gardens. 



The female teacher is, therefore, the first and strongest draw-back, in my judgment, 

 towards a successful development of these school gardens, and for the following reasons: 

 Female teachers are physically incapable of undertaking the manual labor necessary. 

 Their term of incumbency in any school is usually very short, about from one to three 

 years, often only one year. They have not sufficient knowledge of such things, because 

 many of them are city girls having no experience whatever in such matters and care noth- 

 ing at all about it. Moreover, they, like the male teachers, have not time to spend upon 

 the work. 



The introduction of consolidated schools may supply a remedy, but there are new 

 difficulties introduced by the consolidated schools which may, or may not, be counter- 

 balanced by the advantages; but the proper way to introduce the school gardens upon a 

 firm basis would be to return to the conditions such as existed in Ontario twenty or twen- 

 ty-five years ago, by appointing only male teachers, and, if possible, married teachers; 

 provide dwellings for them and keep them for twenty or thirty years in a given school. 

 There are a few such schools near Guelph to-day, and in one of these is a very fine school 

 garden. The man resigned a few months ago, after nineteen years' service in that school. 

 But it ma}^ be said that there are not now enough children to warrant the expenditure 

 involved in the employment of such a teacher. This may be true. And for my part I 

 think the main tendency now is to teach children at home and abandon the public school 

 altogether. And why should it be considered necessary to send a child away to learn to 

 read, to w^ite and to do some arithmetic any more than it is to teach the child to talk 

 good English and a host of other things at home? 



