CALDWELL] THE SCHOOL GARDES 249 



228.3 bushels of corn. Gardens that yield results in materials, 

 practice, thought, and knowledge, thus yielding results in the 

 lives of pupils, are all within the boundaries of the educational 

 idea of the garden movement. The content is determined by 

 v.hat the garden is for, whether pupils work in it and whether 

 it is for education in thought and independence, rather than by 

 what or where the garden is located. 



11. The Garden as a Means of Motivation. 



In one sandy and relatively unproductive section of Chicago, 

 I have seen many boys who had spent much time in streets and 

 on vacant lots motivated, unified, and directed in their efforts 

 by the idea of producing things of value and beauty from the 

 soil. I recall one twelve-year-old boy who fenced in an unpromis- 

 ing and small piece of sandy soil, and by his own efforts grew 

 vegetables that supplied his mother. When I visited his garden, 

 twenty-eight species of flowering plants were in flower. He 

 reminds one of Kropotkin's statement that "In the hands of man 

 there are no unfertile soils.'' He faithfully tended his garden, 

 and at the close of the season asked for school work w hich would 

 better fit him for larger garden ventures in the following season, 

 but. unfortunately for him. and to the disgrace of our system 

 of education, the school could not supply further instruction in 

 the very pursuit that had stimulated this boy and had made 

 education seem worth while to him. It is futile to multiply 

 cases such as that just cited. They are within the experience of 

 every one who has had much experience in first-hand contact 

 with this question. Many an aimless boy and girl has found 

 motive, has found work that seemed worth while to him. All 

 too often the school has been unable thereafter to meet the pu- 

 pil's need for further education by means of and through the 

 thing that has stimulated him. 



III. The Garden as a Work Place. 

 In our educational practice, we seem most slow in incor- 

 porating into our educational practice the well-known fact that 

 pupils "learn by doing." From our own personal work, and 

 from our teaching wherever we have allowed our students to 

 work, we have found that the best interest and best educative 

 quality are derived when work and study, body and mind, go to- 

 gether. In the garden the imagination forecasts results to be 

 secured. A drawing may have depicted these imagined results 

 before garden work began. A drawing may even show in detail 

 the distribution and color of plants that make up the whole 



