FLOWER WORK IN THE RURAL SCHOOLS. 247 



Flowers," and we have in nearly every school a copy of Prof. 

 Green's vegetable gardening. The teachers also help in the in- 

 spection of the gardens, making out the reports, which are sent to 

 the flower committee, and in the placing of the rewards. 



These rewards are. a most important feature. They are in 

 the form of pictures and casts. 1 he pictures are fine, large repro- 

 ductions of famous masterpieces of art, framed in neat, durable 

 frames, especially suited to the school room. The casts are se- 

 lected with the greatest care, from among those made by Caproni 

 of Boston and are good enough for any building. These and the 

 pictures are a constant delight to children and teachers. The 

 League has placed over two hundred of the pictures and a number 

 of fine large casts. 



Now the question is, how can this work which has been 

 planned with special reference to the needs of city children be 

 adapted to the needs of country children. 



We have in the country the same elements — the children, the 

 parents, the school and the teachers; but the conditions are totally 

 different, and the nature of the work as well as the means must 

 necessarily be different. In the country the child has nature all 

 about him- — trees, flowers and abundance of space in which to 

 raise plants. He has everything that the city child has not; but 

 the city child has some things that the country child has not — in 

 many cases he has leisure in which to care for his garden — and 

 yet after inspecting hundreds of gardens I do not hesitate to say 

 that the busiest children nearly always have the best gardens. 

 Whatever they have or have not though, the city child and the 

 country child have one need in common, and that is, something 

 that will interest them in the home, something that will bring 

 them into closer sympathy with their parents and with their school- 

 mates. This something I think can be found in the home garden. 

 But the parents, the teachers and the state organization — let us call 

 it the State Horticultural Society for convenience — must co-operate. 

 The parents ought to be generous and give each child a little plat 

 of ground for his own. Let him put a fence around and let every 

 one understand that the rights of that child are sacred, not only as 

 regards his land but his time. Let him and everybody else dis- 

 tinctly understand that after he has performed certain work, which 

 should -be clearly defined, he can have a certain amount of time to 

 himself. I think this is a most important matter, and its neglect is 

 one reason why so many children leave the farm. The way in 

 which most children on the farm are kept at work is enough to dis- 

 courage any one and make any one hate country life. 



