VI 



THE GROWING OF PLANTS BY CHILDREN— THE 



SCHOOL-GARDEN 



Actually to grow a plant is to come into 

 intimate contact with a specific bit of nature. 

 The numbers of plants that we grow, and also 

 the kinds of them, increase with every generation. 

 The intensity of our plant-growing, as well as the 

 increasing care for animals, is coming to be a 

 measure of our interest in the world about us. 



Not only has the cultivation of plants itself 

 increased our contact with plants and with nature, 

 but, in connection with the growth of the spirit 

 of art, of sport and of suburbanism, it has taken 

 us afield and has impelled us to know things as 

 they are and as they grow. All this great interest 

 in nature is reacting profoundly on the natural 

 sciences in making them more vital and increasing 

 their application to the daily life. With all its 

 progressiveness, science is yet conservative. 

 The modern popularization of plant-knowledge is 

 probably due quite as much to these agencies as 

 to the progress of botany itself. 



There are many practical applications to the 

 lives of children and to the home that can be 

 made from a knowledge of plants and horticulture. 

 This knowledge means more than a mere know- 



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