children's garden conference. 187 



get the teachers, and the teacher's great problem is to get her knowledge 

 of horticulture. We hope to do our share in providing her with reasonable 

 opportunities. 



School Garden Work and the Normal School. 



BY W. A. BALDWIN, PRINCIPAL STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, HYANNIS, MASS. 



In the brief time at my disposal I cannot do better than to analyze the 

 forces which have driven the Hyannis Normal School to take up the 

 school garden work. I venture to consider this account as worthy of 

 presentation because I believe that it is typical of what is happening or 

 must soon happen to every progressive normal school. 



Modern pedagogy demands that there must be a basis in sense percep- 

 tion along every line. We are, therefore, driven to one of two courses. 

 First, let the child alone to get such experiences as may come to him. 

 Second, select or help him to select such typical experiences as would 

 seem to furnish him with the needed basal experiences. 



We used to leave the matter to chance and we inclined even to disregard 

 the valuable experiences gained by the child in this haphazard way. With 

 the advance in science it has become impossible to leave the whole matter 

 to providence and we have been inclined to go as far the other way, leav- 

 ing nothing to individual initiative. The result has been such work as 

 the regulation sloyd manual training. 



In slavish imitation of others we had put sloyd into our Training School. 

 It was not producing the desired results and we began to consider the 

 matter. The problem as it presented itself to us was something like this: 



What form or forms of manual training are best adapted to produce 

 the desired results? We were then driven to consider more carefully 

 than ever before just what results we were aiming to secure. This has 

 proved for us a fruitful question which is not yet fully answered. We 

 soon became convinced, however, that such work should possess the 

 following characteristics : 



1. It should grow out of the environment of the child. 



2. It should come as a response to something from within the normal 

 child. 



3. It should be typical of important world activities. 



4. It should furnish ample opportunities for the child to act himself 

 out in connection with typical activities and relations to things and to 

 people. 



The first three are to such an audience as we have today obvious. The 



last is less obvious but vastly important. Let us consider it for a moment. 



Unless a child is allowed to act himself out there is no opportunity to 



