INQUIRIES 149 



* gardening day/ which comes twice a week to each 

 of the four hundred. Large crops have been 

 gathered and proudly carried home ; seeds have 

 been in demand for home gardens, sixty or more 

 of which have been made in the neighborhood ; 

 and last spring children to the number of one 

 hundred and thirty volunteered to cultivate the 

 gardens during the summer vacation. In the home- 

 gardens there has been great diversity of crops. 

 Besides the usual school plants, children have 

 raised wheat, corn, pumpkins, sweet and Irish 

 potatoes, and also many kinds of flowers. A 

 wholesome rivalry has sprung up between the 

 owners of adjoining beds in the school-garden, and 

 pride in the appearance of the school-grounds has 

 been stimulated. An interest in birds and insects, 

 and an appreciation of the beauty of wayside 

 flowers and other common things, have been 

 developed ; and the roughest children have been 

 made more gentle by handling the beautiful 

 flowers that they have grown, the result of their 

 own care and patience. A regard for the property 

 and rights of others is among the results of this 

 cooperative gardening, also an appreciation of the 

 advantages of working together, and a certain 

 forbearance and loyalty to one's partner, all of 

 which are lessons of inestimable value, especially 

 to colored children. When we add to these 

 unconscious influences of school-gardening the 

 conscious self-respect and self-reliance that come 

 from the abihty to produce from the soil something 

 of one's very own, it will be admitted that this sub- 



