206 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of what others have done with continual experiments on our own part; 

 and we intend to overcome remaining obstacles so far as the demands 

 of other important phases of school work will afford time and energy. 

 We have been greatly encouraged to continued effort in the past by the 

 approval of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and highly prize 

 this opportunity of placing our results in comparison with those attained 

 elsewhere. 



A similar account might be given in detail of cannas, hardy lilies and 

 other species. We have also secured other new species and varieties 

 from seed in our cold frames. A new phase of our work in disseminating 

 hardy plants, and of educating the children thereby, has commenced this 

 year. The pupils gather the seeds of the annuals and the hardy plants 

 in the gardens, and another spring these will be both given away and sold 

 to children and others in our district for planting at home. It will be 

 noted that this gives familiarity with the entire cycle of a plant's life, 

 on the educational side. 



We find that the school garden is a means of educating the children 

 in many other lines than agriculture. It occasions much manual training 

 in the use of tools in construction; there are stakes and labels to be made; 

 stakes and fences to be painted; glass to be set in cold frame sashes; 

 straw mats to be woven to cover the cold frames; and much work with 

 wood for varied purposes. The gardens gi-\'e opportunity to train the 

 pupils to manage not alone concrete ideas and to manage things, capabil- 

 ities that are slighted in work with books, but they also afford opportunities 

 for training boys and girls to manage one another, and there is so little 

 cooperation in constructive activity in the average school that the schools 

 give practically no training to the capability that all possess of managing 

 men. We believe that while a garden of individual plots has essential 

 values which should make it fundamental to any well-rounded school 

 garden scheme, yet the general school garden in whose care all share, 

 and wherein no individual pupil owns specified portions separate from his 

 fellows, has superior values in many ways. At the Cobbet School the 

 gardens are now in the joint care of the Principal and a Garden Commission 

 appointed by the Mayor of the boys' playground government. The 

 Commission appoints such assistants as clerks, salesmen, draughtsmen, 

 and photographers, while all the boys are organized into groups of three 

 for caring for the garden. Every group has a foreman who is responsible 

 to the Principal and Commission for the work and order of his workmen. 

 Written contracts giving in detail stents of work in spading, weeding, 

 seeding, transplanting, etc., are prepared and assigned by the Commission 

 to the foremen on their application for work. They apply to their teachers 

 for such school time as will not necessitate their absence from lessons in 

 which their standing is low, and during the hour or so of time thus granted 

 work out the contract. They then report to Principal or Commission for 

 approval of their work. The character of the second contract given to 

 any group of workers depends upon the efficiency shown in performing 



