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principles now, whether we allow the gardens to perish for lack 

 of care during the summer, or whether we hire others to care 

 for the gardens the two or three months the children are away. 



F 



In the first alternative, the children sow without reaping; in the 

 second, they practically reap without sowing. 



No one has come nearer to a real solution of the problem than 

 the Brooklyn Botanic Garden — and gardens of this kind would 



r 



be a God-send to any community. We have had so many poor 

 school gardens in connection with good school systems, and so 

 many poor school gardens conducted by private, city or other 

 lay organizations, that it is difficult to understand why boards of 

 education still fail to see two very obvious things illustrated in 

 your children's gardens: (i) that school gardens should be con- 

 ducted by people trained in the subject matter of gardening; and 

 (2) that educational work by educational experts need not be 

 part of the present nine- or ten-month school period. And yet, 

 how many chiklrcn's gardens like yours exist in the United States 

 today? This lack brings us back to the second part of our 

 question, what must we do to secure for nature study the recog- 

 nition it deserves in our educational program? 



First, we must keep clearly in mind that although nature study 

 is taught mainly to cliildren it is not a little subject. Because 

 of the complex sciences contributing the materials we use, there 

 is an understandable tendency to use courses, even lessons and 

 detailed facts, worked out by others surer o^f their foundations. 

 This tends to emphasize details or facts rather than principles 

 and relationships. Facts become ends in themselves, not the illu- 

 minating path by which we advance. 



To prevent this, facts should be seen only in relation to some 

 larger idea or principle. If facts themselves are the important 

 thing, the child wlio counts rabbit's teeth contributes as much as 

 the child describing their chisel-like, cutting edge. Similarly, the 

 child who notes that the upper lip is pink has given as important 

 a characteristic as the one who discovers that the upper lip is 

 cleft down the middle to allow its complete retraction in gnawing 

 bark. Children can be made to distinguish between the values 



■ 



of such details only by measuring them up against some main 



