children's garden conference. 195 



enough to have had an agricultural training, they will be able to tell much 

 more about the sprouting and later on the more important facts of the 

 bean as a food and the great part it plays in the economy of the world. 



The child grows beets and should learn how to select good beets. Many 

 children have to do the marketing. They should know how to get the 

 best value for their money. The children should know the difference 

 between the radish which they buy at the store and the radish they grow 

 in their garden. We tell our visitors and children that you cannot buy 

 at Sherry's radishes like those we grow in our little gardens. The teacher 

 should be able to tell the children facts about the radish that will have a 

 live interest to them. The radish furnishes a juice with some minerals 

 in it; but in its growth it so combines the minerals and water and carbon 

 from the earth and air as to give the juice a peculiar value to mankind. 

 Look in the dictionary for anti-scorbutic. It is because of its value as a 

 remedy and preventative of scurvy that the radish has been so highly 

 thought of for thousands of years. It is one of our oldest known vege- 

 tables. Now the teacher who merely takes a course in horticulture may 

 come into the children's garden quite unequipped, as compared to the 

 teacher whose natural tendency has always been that of the jack-of-all- 

 trades. 



I had some experience with a teacher who had graduated from a fine 

 agricultural college, specializing in nature study. But she had not studied 

 soils, and in our garden we have a great variety of soils. We have clay of 

 several colors and sand of several colors, and I had expected to rely on 

 this teacher for such information. She had studied more entomology 

 than I had, but she had not studied about the things which we wanted to 

 know about. The ladybug and aphis are thick in our garden, but she 

 could not talk familiarly about them. She objected to the handling of 

 worms. When a boy or girl brings a great big caterpillar in the middle 

 of their hand to make inquiries and the teacher shies at it. the child does 

 not ask why, but because of the teacher's attitude instinctively thinks, 

 "It will hurt me." We really have comparatively few insects or animals 

 that children cannot handle without injury. If the teacher causes the 

 child to fear the unknown, because of her attitude, she has done the child 

 a wrong, and closed many doors of interesting information in the world 

 of nature. 



I think the training of the garden is ideal for women who want to be 

 mothers. In the little house and garden the children play the game of 

 life in miniature. AVashing, ironing, sewing, sweeping, dusting, cooking, 

 entertaining guests, planting the vegetables in their little individual 

 farms, weeding, watering, watching the insects and from this watching 

 learning to protect some insects and to destroy others. Some nature 

 study teachers instil a false sentiment about taking life. We had a num- 

 ber of visitors one day who were shocked to see a little girl farmer kill a 

 butterfly. But the small girl knew more about the cabbage butterfly 

 than the tender-hearted ladies, and was able to show a reason for its 



