CERTAIN USES OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN. 81 



future industrial life. So far we can go. However, more and more 

 public opinion is demanding that child labor shall not be exploited 

 for the benefit of the employer, but shall be conserved in school for 

 the benefit of the child. 



We see remarkable evidences of the changed attitude on the part 

 of educational institutions toward the kind of scientific knowledge 

 demanded by modern industry. We are told that Harvard this 

 year admits applicants for the degree of bachelor of arts who offer 

 an accepted requirement in place of Latin, and we read this very 

 week that that high citadel of orthodox educational ideas, Oxford 

 University itself, has established a chair of agricultural science in 

 recognition of the fact recently discovered by Oxford, that agri- 

 culture is a science! Surely with this august precedent we may 

 embark on any school garden adventure we will. 



If, then, we can convince ourselves that the printed word is not 

 the only thing with which schools may profitably concern them- 

 selves we may set about finding out the best way to teach a manual 

 art — our gardening art, for instance. Here we are confronted 

 with the differences in surroundings of various schools. However, 

 whether we begin with the school in the crowded city, the factory 

 town, the village or the country district, there are conunon uses to 

 which the garden may be put. It may be used to teach arithmetic, 

 geography, drawing, writing, spelling. Learning the multiplica- 

 tion table by planting peas is a pleasant process. Finding the area 

 of a triangle in which one is to grow radishes is n't a distasteful 

 task. When flax and hemp, winter wheat and rye, tobacco and 

 peanuts are grown under our own observation the pages of the 

 geography take on a new interest. 



"What is that blue flower?" asked one of my North End girls 

 one day last summer as we were visiting Mr. Rawson's farm in 

 Arlington. 



"Succory," I replied. 



"OhI" cried she, "we had that in the reading book — 'succory 

 to match the sky' — Ralph Waldo Emerson." And she knew it 

 the next time she saw it. Then, too, there can be no such medium 

 for teaching reverence for the miracle of nature, the renewal of 

 life, as any garden oft'ers. The coming up of the seeds, the forma- 

 tion of the seeds, the needs of the plant, the kinship of the vegetable 



