No. I.] NATURE STUDY. 217 



abroad are pointing to New England as the most glaring 

 example of sudden racial degeneration on record. And 

 why is it that, with our few children, we see so many ad- 

 vertisements, "House to let to family of adults?"" Is it 

 not because children are not properly trained, are idle, and 

 consequently mischievous and destructive? Give the chil- 

 dren interests and wholesome work to do in upbuilding the 

 home, and they will not tear it down. Where even a little 

 land is available, the problem may be solved in such wise 

 that these advertisements will be changed to read : " House 

 to rent to family with two or more children ; no family 

 without children need apply." 



As an educator of the child, the home garden contains 

 possibilities that have never been appreciated, and the prime 

 factor in realizing these possibilities is ownership by the 

 child of what he produces. I know the garden is a painful 

 theme to some, and we have to thank, for much of the 

 neglect of the modern garden, the slavish drudgery, the 

 punishment by stents of weeding and hoeing that some of 

 us remember. But give the child appropriate rights and 

 responsibilities of ownership, and the garden becomes at 

 once the prime source of education in citizenship and the 

 laws of property. Furthermore, we need much closer re- 

 lations between the home and school, and the home garden 

 can be made the great text book from which the child may 

 learn his lessons in nature study. Nature study in the 

 school would thus add interest to the work of the garden, 

 instead, as is too often the case, of turning the child away 

 from these wholesome pursuits by sheer neglect. 



Each home will approach the problem in its own way. 

 On the one extreme we shall have all flow^ers, lawns and 

 ornamental planting ; on the other, potatoes and cabbages 

 in the front yard ; and between the extremes, all degrees 

 of blending the useful with the beautiful. I have planned 

 with my own children to give each one a plot of ground, 

 beginning at the age of four or five, furnish each a seed 

 box of his own, and necessary tools, with places to keep 

 them. I then get flower and garden catalogues for them, 

 and let them study and plan, and finally decide what they 



