448 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Children was read in Boston before the Massachusetts Horticul- 

 tural Society by one of its members. The interest aroused by the 

 reading of this paper resulted in the establishment of a school garden 

 in connection with one of the Boston grammar schools in the spring 

 of 1891. A committee of the society promised such pecuniary sup- 

 port as seemed to be needed from time to time. Mrs. Henrietta L. 

 T. Wolcott, then at the head of the committee, in presenting the 

 claims of school-garden work to the society, said: "We desire to 

 emphasize the true idea of a school garden. Growing plants, from 

 the first sign of germination to the full perfection of blossom and 

 fruit, and edible roots in all stages, give constant opportunity for 

 study. We believe that by means of the school garden children 

 can be so trained to appreciate plants growing naturally that the 

 present custom of laying out public gardens with flowering and 

 foliage plants arranged in the form of grotesque designs, portraits 

 of distinguished men, symbols of trades, spiritual suggestions or em- 

 blems, and rolls of carpeting framed and left out in rain and sun- 

 shine will in time disappear. Setting rows of plants in military 

 precision and replacing them by others like magic can have but little 

 educational value." 



Since the committee intended to offer premiums for the best 

 school gardens, they thought that persons might be induced to buy 

 the ordinary cultivated plants of a florist, and with them make what 

 they might choose to call school gardens. This, however, would not 

 imply any proper knowledge of such plants, or more useful ones, nor 

 ability to make good use of them as objects for study. It was 

 thought that troubles might arise from allowing a florist's garden 

 to be taken as the standard for the gardens which they wished to see 

 established. The one who spent the most money, or had the most 

 persuasiveness among florists, might establish fine gardens, lay claim 

 to premiums in good faith, and win them; and yet such gardens 

 might not serve the purpose which the committee considered best. 

 Accordingly, they decided that in the beginning only those plants 

 which were the most suitable for educational purposes should form 

 the main stock of the school gardens. The decision was expressed 

 thus : " Ornamental plants, or those commonly cultivated in flower 

 gardens, will not stock the school gardens contemplated by the com- 

 mittee. Native wild plants, such as ferns, grasses, asters, golden- 

 rods, violets, native shrubs, and economic plants, such as grains, 

 vegetable roots, and leguminous and cucurbitaceous plants, must be 

 the stock of the gardens." 



Later, when children's natural love .for color and the influence 

 of beautiful flowers in the schoolroom in cultivating aesthetic tastes 

 came to be considered, cultivated plants were allowed introduction, 



