The School Garden and Fundamentals 

 of Education 



Otis W. Caldwell. 



University of Chicago. 



When Gladstone stated that ''one example is worth a thou- 

 sand arguments," he expressed an idea which should be more 

 widely recognized in education. We too often state the educa- 

 tional values that may be derived from some particular activity, 

 with too few examples showing these values in process of realiza- 

 tion. Much good garden work has already been done in the 

 United States, and much is now in progress, and possibly it may 

 be safe. to judge what has been accomplished in an attempt to 

 state some of the ways in which gardens appear to relate to 

 fundamentals in education. 



I. What Do We Mean by School Gardens? 



At the outset it should be noted that the content of the term 

 "school gardens," has grown beyond what we at first meant when 

 \ve thought of a small patch of cultivated ground at the side of 

 the schoolhouse. "Gardens by school pupils" would more nearly 

 express the present scope of the term, for we include indoor and 

 outdoor cultivation at the school, vacant lot gardens, whether 

 managed by groups or single pupils, boys' and girls' corn club 

 and flower gardens, and home gardens, where teacher, pupil, and 

 parents co-operate and even community gardens in which a 

 whole famHy may work together. The whole garden movement 

 is included in whatever form it may express itself as a means of 

 education. If we include in content only what is being done at 

 school, we omit the aspects upon which we hope to bring most 

 influence to bear. Unless school work secures reactions in home 

 arid community life, it misses its aim. Home and community 

 life should regularly be used as the basis of school work and 

 there is need for gardens at the school only when they cannot 

 be had at home, or when for some demonstration or experiment, 

 group work is needed. I wish to include everything from sixth 

 story apartment window boxes to school window boxes, group 

 and individual school gardens, home gardens by pupils — vege- 

 table, flower, and horticultural — community gardens and educa- 

 tive farm experiments, such as Jerry Moore's one-acre corn plot 

 in South Carolina, from which single acre this bov produced 



2^8 



