KiKAL School Lkailkt. 793 



With songs and recitations to precede the refreshments, here is an 

 entertainment for teachers, pupils, and parents to thoroughly enjoy, 

 especially when it has been entirely the work of the pupils, and they are 

 feeling to the full extent the pride and delight of ownership and accom- 

 pHshment. 



V. LIFE IN THE GARDEN 



By Alice G. McCloskey 



From midsummer until late autumn 

 the study of life in a garden affords 

 abundant material for nature-study. 

 It is a place in which the children 

 may carry on their observations with- 

 out disturbing anyone. It is their 

 own laboratory. Here they may col- 

 j^Lu '*7^;^;fi^6*' '- ig^,^ Q^^^ investigate on their own 



ground. 



One fall day I spent an afternoon with forty public school children 

 in one of our gardens. It was in early September. The air was cool, 

 the sky deep blue, the garden glorious with brilliant color. 



The children and I sat in the assembly arbor, and discussed the 

 garden as it lay before us. Many of the individual beds had been neg- 

 lected, the children having been away from home during the vacation, 

 yet the owners were interested in the things that had survived the 

 competition of weeds and insects. 



Of the forty children present, I found but two who could name the 

 flowers then in blossom in the borders on either side of the entrance 

 walk. These fiowers were dwarf nasturtiums, bachelor's buttons, 

 marigolds, zinnias, larkspur, and sunflowers. It seemed to me the 

 garden was quite worth the while, if for no other reason than that 

 these forty children should become interested in these flowers, 

 many of which were new to them. I decided to have them spend 

 the afternoon in making notes on the flowers that were in blossom, 

 giving date, and facts of interest. Any child was privileged to ask the 

 names of plants with which he was not familiar. Besides the flowers in 

 the borders, there were many in blossom in other jjarts of the garden: 

 phlox, mignonette, alyssum, forget-me-nots, pansies, verbenas, dusty 

 miller, maid-in-the-mist, petunias, candytuft, cock's comV), and other 

 plants. The children were asked to spend an hour in looking at the 

 blossoms, naming them, making notes as to height, size of blossom, and 

 other points that occurred to them. 



