TOHNSOX 



SCHOOL GARDENS 



59 



definiteness and the attention of the pupil to the main Hne of 

 thought is not so difficult to hold. Nature study based on the 

 school garden is more likely to be a study of real things in 

 Nature than a study about things as found in books. The school 

 garden furnishes the teacher with a limited amount of material 

 from which it is comparatively easy to make a selection of topics 

 really worth teaching and upon which it is a comparatively simple 

 matter to prepare herself, and to collect literature, thus prac- 

 tically eliminating what, to the teacher, is one of the greatest 

 l)ractical difficulties encountered in nature study teaching, and 



A Phil.xdelphia School G.vrdex. 



removing one of the strongest indictments heretofore returned 

 against nature study in the schools, and properly too. namely, its 

 indefiniteness. 



Once more the school garden taken as a center for the teach- 

 ing of nature study guarantees a closer correlation of nature study 

 with other subjects in the curriculum, acting upon them to their 

 material advantage, adding a touch of life arid an element of living 

 interest to them, and being reacted upon in a desirable way as 

 a result. The fact that the tools used in the school garden have 

 to be mended from time to time guarantees that the work in nature 

 study shall be brought into correlation with manual training; 

 the keeping of the daily diary of work done and its results con- 

 nects it vitally with the work in English; the laying off of the 

 grounds connects closely through simple surveying processes and 

 geometry with the work in mathematics, as does also the keeping 

 of accounts to determine the cost of the production of the crop ; 



