For November, 1921 



777 



Training Gardeners in the Public Schools 



OTIS M. EASTMAN 



{ (' I 'HE public schools of America are facing the 

 I problem of furnishing professional gardeners to 

 fill the vacancy caused by the late war which cut 

 of¥ the supply of trained men who came from Europe." 

 This was the challenge thrown out by the National Gar- 

 dener's Convention in Cleveland in 1919. 



What the Cleveland school system has to show in 

 answer to this challenge is the subject of this paper. At 

 the time of its mention in the convention the idea of 

 the schools furnishing trained horticulturists was met by 

 the statement that school training is not practical; that 

 apprenticeship, which gives the young man in training 

 real experiences in commercial greenhouses and gardens 

 and real business contacts, is the only practical training 

 possible. What Cleveland is doing may largely be attrib- 

 uted to the 1919 convention, because it was from that 

 meeting that the broader vision of school gardening came. 



It is, perhaps, a justified impression that public school 

 courses in general are impractical. It is erroneous, never- 

 theless, to sav thaL public school courses are necessarily 

 so. The work in Cleveland is as real ,is it is in the com- 

 mercial houses, and at the same time, its cultural values 

 are enhanced because of its reality. 



What is school gardening? Before answering that 

 question directly let me say that, in Cleveland, school 

 gardening covers Nature-Study in the first si-x grades and 

 elementar\' horticulture from grade seven through the 

 senior high school. 



.'\ school garden is an outdoor laboratory in which a 

 child has an opportunity to get wholesome experience, 

 something out of books, a chance to act upon his book 

 knowledge, an opportunity to get content for expression ; 

 above all, a chance for an American sort of Education. 



The garden furnishes an opportunity to study Nature 

 "near to life"; a chance for the boys and girls to acquire 

 a taste for cultivating plants and solving problems con- 

 nected with them ; a chance to study real objects by doing 

 things, making with hands and tools as well as minds : 

 all of whicli should lead to familiar acquaintance with the 

 important natural objects of the environment, and to 

 observation of relationships, to knowledge of plant growth. 

 to recognition of friends and foes among insects and 

 birds, and some understanding of weather and climate. 



■The school garden, carried out as it is from the first 

 grade through high school, develops the latent genius in 

 the child, so that during the course of years in the work 

 there is a gradual weeding out process. This means that 

 the senior year in high school will find the classes in 

 horticulture made up of boys who have chosen the work 

 with a definite end in view, that of devoting their lives 

 to the profession of gardening. All this is possible for 

 one reason ; the boys are given the chance to find them- 

 selves in the early days of their school life, at a time when 

 the appeal of growing plants will find a home in their 

 minds : and as they go through high .school tliey will 

 elect courses to suit their desires. 



The enrollment in Cleveland courses has increased over 

 .■^OO per cent since 1910, when the work was put upon 

 the present basis. This increase is due to the fact that 

 the nature of our course has been changed to meet the 

 needs set forth in the Cleveland convention. Students 

 are trained now upon the basis of "doing" rather than 

 "hearing." They perform, during their course of instruc- 

 tion, over ICO operations, which include actual business 



experiences in selling upon the market and buying sup- 

 plies and material, and figuring out their gardens upon 

 a labor-cost basis. 



(A list of these of>erations is appended.) 



The sharp line between agriculture and horticulture is 

 clearly drawn here. Agriculture pure and simple is a 

 subject of remote interest to boys and girls who seldom 

 so much as visit a farm. It is physically impossible for 

 them to have the practice in farm work which should 

 accompany such training. Of the 130,000 students in 

 Cleveland public schools only a negligible handful in out- 

 lying districts live on fanns. Gardening, on the other 

 hand, may be profitably pursued by the city dweller ; his 

 children can find mterest and enjoyment in it: they may 

 study it as a science for which the laboratory is provided 

 in their own back yard. 



Agricultural teaching has been on trial in cities for 

 some years, but it has never reached more than a small 

 number of students, and the expense of installing and 

 maintaining laboratories has been almost prohibitive. In 

 most city schools the enrollment has dwindled in recent 

 years. The class at West Technical High School began 

 with sixty members and dropped to four or five. Several 

 school boards have taken the step of substituting garden- 

 ing in its place, as has been done in the one case here. 



A new greenhouse is to be constructed at West Techni- 

 cal High School. The plant, to cost $60,000, is to be 

 equipped thoroughly and divided into six compartments, 

 and in addition a palm house for tropical plants, a storage 

 cellar, and a work house large enough to accommodate 

 a large class. The building of this plant, together with 

 the plans being prepared for three others in dififerent 

 sections of the city, may be attributed to the vision which 

 came from the Cleveland convention. 



In our present greenhouse at West Technical High 

 School we have been hampered by lack of space and 

 inability to regulate temperature. In the new plant we 

 will be able to raise roses, carnations, sweet peas and 

 other flowers because we will be able to regulate tempera- 

 ture suitable for them. Vegetable crops. — such as lettuce, 

 cucumbers, and tomatoes, heretofore an impossibility, 

 will be possible. 



The storage cellar will simplify the caring for roots, 

 bulbs and seeds. The work-room will allow room for 

 our growing classes and the propagation house will re- 

 lieve the congested benches we use today. The number 

 of plant varieties in our nurseries and gardens has in- 

 creased from thirty-one to more than seven hundred. 

 This number will double in another twelve months. 



It is a point of interest to note here that the school 

 gardens set aside one fifth of their total acreage for 

 nurseries. Work on these nurseries is done in part by 

 skilled adult labor, but mostly by boys who have taken 

 proper technical courses in plant propagation. The de- 

 partment pays the boys by the hour according to their 

 ages and training. The workers are faced with the 

 actual problem of making the nursery pay. The income 

 from the nurseries ofTsets all costs in maintaining them. 

 This is an incentive which appeals strongly to the boys, 

 several of whom have put themselves through high school 

 and have entered college with money earned in extra 

 hours and during vacations. 



Perhaps the chief effect upon the Geveland system has 

 been the expansion of the department of school garden- 



