60 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA 



vacations will mean. It is not necessary, and 

 perhaps not even important, that the child be 

 taught these things with the idea of making him 

 a farmer, but merely as a means of education and 

 of interest to him in the out-of-doors. The day is 

 coming when agriculture under other names, 

 perhaps, and not as a professional subject will be 

 taught in public schools as a " culture study." 



There must be a greater interest in parks and 

 public gardens. These institutions have now 

 come to be a part of our civic life. They no 

 longer need apology. We build parks in the 

 same spirit that we build good streets and make 

 sanitary improvements; but the park should be 

 more than a mere display of gardening. It 

 should have an intimate relation with the lives 

 of the people. The greater the number of 

 parks the better for the children. All parks 

 should be open to nature-study teachers, at least 

 on certain days. There should also be children's 

 days in the parks. In some places the park can 

 grow specimens for the school. In large cities 

 it might be a good plan to have some of the 

 common vegetables and farm crops growing in 

 small areas at one side of the park. The ten- 

 dency, perhaps, is to make our parks too exotic, 

 and to give relatively too much attention to mere 

 roads, statuary and architecture. The perfect 

 garden, from the gardener's point of view, may 

 not be the most useful one. The garden should 

 be so common and so easy to make as to become 

 a part of the child-life. 



