ITS NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [12:4— April, 1916 



the feeling that it is all wrong is a growing one. The use of 

 achievement badges is decidedly a safer way to maintain interest, 

 for such badges call attention to the achievement itself. 



In conclusion, then, we believe that 'the work of gardening is of 

 great benefit in the training of children in towns and cities. We 

 believe that the work should be conducted on an intensive, business- 

 like and profitable basis. To insure this, qualified teachers should 

 be provided for groups of children not exceeding 200, and such 

 teachers should be retained throughout the summer. We further 

 believe that the work should be made so attractive that it will be 

 unnecessary to offer prizes to maintain the interest of children. 



School Gardening a Fundamental Factor in Education 



Leroy H. Harvey 



A survey of the graded school curriculum for the last twenty 

 years shows it to have undergone constant repair. To keep the 

 course of study even within a decade of current and progressive 

 thought has been the magnus opus of educators especially con- 

 cerned with this phase of our public school system. The dogma of 

 the three R.'s, as an educational panacea, has proved a failure, an 

 aid to mental indigestion and even ofttimes has led to mental or 

 physical incapacity. However, the tenacity of this dogma has 

 served a purpose, for revolution has given place to slow evolution 

 of the course. And there can be no question but that further 

 progress is inevitably looking toward the most insistent demands of 

 our modern social and economic organization. 



We are constantly alarmed by the announcements of sociologists 

 that crime, insanity and degeneracy of a pronounced as well as 

 subtle nature are on the increase, a condition which is especially 

 dangerous as the results are cumulative. We must look almost 

 entirely to the public school for vigorous corrective and preventive 

 measures and the curriculum of the graded schools seems to occupy 

 the strategic position in our educational system. It is not that a 

 child should know so much English, so much History, so much 

 Mathematics as it is that he should leave the school with a healthy 

 body, a healthy mind, and noble ideals. The preponderating 

 significance of this becomes forcibly evident when we consider that 

 60^ of our school population terminates its school training for life 



