90 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [16:3— Mar., 1920 



represented the boys and girls of what we call our "large garden." 

 This is a garden of beginners, second year people, and occasionally 

 a few third year people. The plots are all 8' x lo'. These are all 

 planted alike, but never remain the same after the first row of 

 radishes has matured and comes out of the bed. The other 20 

 boys and girls in the auditorium are high school people and gram- 

 mar school children who have been in this garden three and four 

 years. These are called "junior gardeners." They have plots 

 10' X 20' on a separate piece of land. They make out their own 

 plans, start their own seedlings in the greenhouses, and are sup- 

 posed to do almost independent work. Two hours a week through 

 the spring and siunmer these boys and girls have what is called a 

 conference in which those things that have bothered them are 

 taken up, and during this time one of the teachers will go to the 

 gardens with them and visit their plots to find out what their 

 problems really are. 



These junior helpers worked in the garden thorughout this last 

 summer each one teaching from three to six children, according 

 to his ability. Perhaps four out of the 20 became such real helpful 

 junior gardeners that by August they could handle eight to ten 

 children apiece. The little groups of junior supervised children 

 were scattered through the garden rather than blocked in one spot. 

 This is, I believe, the very best arrangement because the teaching 

 by these older boys and girls many times will be weaker than that 

 of the regular teachers, and one sees the results in the plots. This 

 is not always true. In some cases the boys and girls get fully as 

 good results as do the older teachers. 



Going back again to the first morning in the auditorium, the boys 

 and girls were called off by numbers in groups of ten. Of course, 

 long before this they have known the number of their plots, have 

 looked at a large chart, and such charts should be made by the 

 upper boys and girls in the garden, and know their places in the 

 garden. Ten boys and girls are to be taught by a teacher. In 

 the special work of mine at the Botanic Garden we have a training 

 school for garden teachers and this work with the boys and girls 

 is their regular practice work. It happened this past year that we 

 had a very small group of practice teachers so that we drew upon 

 our graduates of other years. What would one do in running a 

 community garden or a school garden on this plan? Just two 

 things could cover this case. First, the preparation of junior 



