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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



much more amenable to control and instruction than on an excursion. 

 Without the school garden the great masses of children in cities will 

 never have their attention directed to the great lessons of Nature in 

 any telling way. Some of them may visit the country, but very 

 few will have efficient direction, and the results will be meager. 



It is too much to expect that teachers, especially those in city 

 schools, will unremittingly supply fresh material whenever needed 

 for instruction in the elements of science. Even in the country the 



Children working in George Putnam School Garden. 



most desirable plants are often far from the school. It would be a 

 most extraordinary school district where fourteen golden-rods, 

 eighteen wild asters, and twenty-nine ferns, all different kinds, might 

 be found growing. Probably half of the plants that would nourish 

 in a school garden could not be found in the district at all ; or, if they 

 could, they would be scattered and remote from the school, and 

 whether they were in a proper state of development for study could 

 not always be ascertained easily. The nearness of the school garden 

 is one of its most valuable features. 



A book might be written on the educational value of a school 

 garden properly used; but mention of its main advantages must 

 suffice. Besides the opportunity for correlation, previously men- 

 tioned, it gives the opportunity for bringing together a great number 

 of plants to be classified and arranged in families, genera, and species. 



