TO NATURE STUDY REJ'IEW [8:2— Feb., 1912 



leaves school temporarily or permanently. Again John may 

 be made to sit still, yet saves himself from crystallization through 

 his dullness. Fulton, Newton, Seward, Sir Walter Scott, John 

 Hunter, Pasteur, Shelly, Herbert Spencer, Patrick Henry, Pierre 

 'Curie, Thackeray, Oliver Goldsmith, James Russell Lowell, and 

 many others were average pupils, and many were considered 

 dull. They were fundamentally too strong to be standardized 

 by the school. 



The school may help nature in growing men and women 

 through the garden. Through it the children may be led to 

 those factors which make for natural physical and mental 

 growth. Racial impulses both physical and mental are satis- 

 fied by environmental factors. Examination of one's environ- 

 ment, or community, reveals four factors which make for its 

 life — the market, the bank, the press, the factory. 



Each of the four factors alluded to may be traced back 

 to the soil, to agriculture. Agriculture, the soil, is the fun- 

 damental stuff out of which communities are built. Migration — 

 roving from place to place, primitive agriculture, marketing 

 and trading, banking, manufacturing are successive steps in 

 civic evolution. Through the garden, the school may repeat 

 this civic history and the children may be brought in contact 

 with community factors. 



School gardens had been under way in the Ohio State. 

 Normal School several years before the above thought was 

 demonstrated by the writer. A market was established. ]\Iany 

 of the gardeners made from 5 to 75 cents off of plots 4x6 feet. 

 Naturally, to handle the new financial activities a bank was es- 

 tablished. This institution took charge of the gardens and 

 leased the individual plots to the children for 10% of the out- 

 put. The seventh grade bookkeeping class was put in charge 

 of the bank, thus vitalizing the bookkeeping work. The bank 

 handled over $50 a month, and the children were brought in 

 contact with all its activities. 



Continually we felt the need of a printing outfit. A com- 

 plete ofifice was installed with business manager, operators, 

 etc. Boys out of joint with the school system were remade in 

 the printing ofiice. A weekly newspaper and a magazine issued 

 twice a term offered new and vital outlet to the art and English 

 departments. The printing ofiice furnished stationery for the 

 bank. 



Through actual harvesting of the economic plants, sugar 

 beets, flax. hemp. etc.. the garden pointed the way to the work 



