CHILDREN S GARDENS. 237 



CHILDREN'S GARDENS AND THEIR VALUE TO 

 TEACHERS OF BOTANY AND NATURE STUDY. 



By Henry Griscom Parsons, 



Assistant Director of Children's School Farm, DeWitt 



Clinton Park, Nczv York City. 



The widespread interest that is being taken in children's school 

 gardens is, in a measure, dne to the fact that wherever the work 

 has been taken up, some side of it finds lively appreciation in the 

 mind of every beholder. It is eminently practical, because what 

 is learned is of immediate use in the child's daily life, at home and 

 in the school room. Teachers quickly see how the garden work 

 can be made to vitalize some of the at present " dry " subjects. 

 Properly administered, a school garden can be made a source of 

 inspiration to the whole curriculum, and the time is coming when 

 such gardens will be connected with our schools wherever possible. 



In a subject like botany the lessons often become mere groups 

 of troublesome words, soon forgotten ; but for the child to learn 

 of the plants in his own little garden, plants whose very existence 

 he feels sure are largely due to his care and labor, is a progres- 

 sive pleasure. The child, having a garden of his own, is inspired 

 with a strong personal interest in the plants, which takes from 

 the teacher's shoulders a large share of the burden of instruction ; 

 but this interest of the pupil will be made as nothing unless the 

 teacher is endowed with that sympathetic wisdom which makes 

 him understand that the child wants to know about his own 

 plants. In any study, let the teacher create in the class a personal 

 interest in the work and then there will be no need of pushing 

 the pupils ; instead they will have to be restrained to enable the 

 teacher to keep up with them. 



If the child prepares the soil, plants the seeds, cultivates, waters 

 and weeds, and for the time owns the plot of ground and all it 

 contains, no matter how small it is, this sense of ownership, com- 

 bined with the labor he has put upon it, creates the strongest kind 



