For February, 1920 



The Value of School Gardens to Cultivate Americanism 



ARTHUR SMITH 



AT the present time there is not only a generally 

 admitted dearth of first-class, wide-experienced 

 professional gardeners, but also the fact is be- 

 coming more and more apparent that the number of 

 educated young men who are taking up the profession 

 are each year becoming fewer. 



As there are in this country no horticultural schools in 

 the real sense where a young man can obtain a thorough 

 instruction in the science and practice of gardening, a 

 boy who has had some education in this direction while 

 passing through the grades in an elementary school 

 would have, according to the kind of gardening instruc- 

 tion he received, a more or less good foundation upon 

 which he could himself build further knowledge. But 

 •our object is, however, to briefly point otit the value in the 

 abstract, of instruction in gardening to all, whatever line 

 of work they may take up in the future, and not merely for 

 those who would become professional gardeners. 



The Educational Garden is an essential adjunct to 

 up-to-date teaching, and should be available for every 

 town and country school. We believe that everyone who 

 has had any real experience with school garden work 

 will admit its educational value, especially in cities. Hab- 

 its of industrv are inculcated : where children have indi- 

 vidual gardens they get the idea of ownership and its 

 rights. The possession of a garden, with a produce upon 

 it resulting from labor and care, will give a boy a dis- 

 tinct aversion to sharing the results of his labors with a 

 lazy boy who is too indolent to cultivate a garden. He 

 will be more inclined to agree with the idea that "what's 

 mine is my own," and he will demand that the result of 

 his labors shall be properly protected, and naturally will 

 not be inclined to subscribe to any communistic propa- 

 ganda. Thus the individual gardens, where a child has 

 a plot of ground as his own. are preferable to the com- 

 munity gardens where there is only a party interest and 

 where the personal responsibility of the individtial re- 

 mains undeveloped. ' In educational gardens, where the 

 work and returns are shared by all, there is little in- 

 centive to industry, inasmuch as the more industrious 

 children have no greater share in the returns ihan the 

 lazy ones. 



All broad-minded educationalists who have got away 

 from the narrow, pedagogic ideas, are agreed as to the 

 value of physical training as a means of increasing the 

 mental capacity. Garden w:ork is especially adapted to 

 children of the elementary schools as there are things 

 connected with it within the powers of children of all 

 ages and strength ; carried out judiciously it results in 

 the combination of a sound mind in a sound body. Physi- 

 cal exercise in the open air will certainly lay a founda- 

 tion of good health, while the endless variety of occupa- 

 tions, and the subjects calling for the u^e of brain power, 

 connected with gardening wisely handled as a means of 

 education, will seldom fail to strengthen the mental 

 capabilities. 



This is conclusively ])roved by the results in connection 

 with children's homes. These institutions invariably 

 have land attached to them for the production of vege- 

 tables, etc., for home use. and upon the average, children 

 who are old enough only spend half their time in class 

 room work, which is the case of those attending ordinary 

 grade schools. But in spite of this and other obvious 

 drawbacks from a pedagogic point of view, connected 

 with these institutions, such as a generally lower type 



of children, and that as a rule they have no opportunities 

 for individualistic gardening to make the work more 

 interesting and pleasing, yet the children in these homes 

 pass through their grades equally as quickly and as satis- 

 factorily as those attending the grade schools outside. 



Unfortunately, for the purpose of obtaining the fullest 

 results from them, where school gardens have been 

 established in this country the science and practice of 

 gardening has not been made part of the school cur- 

 riculum. One obvious reason for this is that school 

 teachers have little, if any, knowledge of gardenmg, and 

 therefore can not teach it. Other countries have been 

 for a long time aware of the value of school gardens, and 

 that the work in connection with them should be part of 

 the elementary school training. In France, a rule has 

 been in force for over twenty-five years that teachers 

 cannot teach any grade above the third until they have 

 passed an examination in the science and practice of soil 

 cultivation and crop production. In Britain the value of 

 school gardens has long been realized, and for some 

 \ears school teachers, both men and women, have been 

 taking the special examination for the purpose insti- 

 tuted by the Royal Horticultural Society, the number 

 who passed last year being nearly six hundred. 



As far as I am aware, there are but few children's gar- 

 dens in this country which have any direct connection 

 with schools, and where a special instructor is appointed 

 for the purpose of directing the work. This person should 

 be a thorough professional gardener, by which term we 

 mean that he should have a knowledge of both the science 

 and the practice of gardening, so that while any kind of 

 work is being carried on he is capable of showing with his 

 own hands how it should be done and also explain why 

 it should be done in that iiarticular way and whv one 

 method is better than another. 



.\t those times when the weather prevents garden 

 work, the person in charge should be capable of giving 

 in a class room talks to the children upon their work; 

 going over again the whys and wherefores of past opera- 

 tions, and if lantern slides can be obtained of plant struc- 

 ture, etc., children will get a truer and a higher idea of 

 jilant life and of the principles underlying it. 



While we are not prepared to admit that they do not 

 exist, yet it is true that men equally cajxable in the use 

 of a spade and of giving a classroom talk are not very 

 common. College graduates who have taken a course in 

 horticulture have a more or less theoretical knowledge of 

 the "why," but as a rule know very little about the "how." 

 There are too few of them who can take hold of any 

 implement and show how to use it, nor show whv one 

 tool is better for a certain purpose than another which 

 may be sometimes used for it. 



Children who have had a garden of their own and 

 whose work in it has been under the supervision of a 

 man who knows how to garden, are not likely to culti- 

 vate the stupid idea that work connected with growing 

 a plant is any lower in the scale of industry than sitting 

 at a desk: on the contrary, the more they know about 

 the soil and the wonderful processes of plant growth the 

 higher will be the pinnacle upon which they will place 

 garden work. Their connection with the concrete work 

 and objects of gardening will cause them to desire for 

 the future a home with a garden, however small, and 

 their minds will not be so likely to respond to the ab- 

 stract propaganda of radicalism. 



