210 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ment for seeds, and keep diaries of what goes on in the garden. Thus 

 the garden and all pertaining to it mean something. So many are its 

 advantages that it seems to demand a place in every school. 



The necessary money for the support of the gardens was supplied in 

 the beginning by a voluntary committee. More help has come each year 

 from the city and ultimately the whole responsibility will rest upon the 

 city. 



I have spoken somewhat of the educational value of this garden work. 

 I want to say just a word about the economic value. Boston is so situ- 

 ated that its suburbs are near at hand and very accessible ; that is, Boston 

 has special facilities for an outward movement. It will therefore be of 

 the greatest service to the city if, by teaching the children to be interested 

 in the cultivation of the soil, the congested districts be relieved. 



School Gardens as a Preparation for College. 



BT F. A. WAtJGH, PROFESSOR OF HORTICULTURE AND LANDSCAPE GARDEN- 

 ING, MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, AMHERST, M.^SS. 



The following points were brought out: 



(1) School garden work is many sided and bears on many things. Its 

 value in the preparation for college is only one of these things and not the 

 most important. 



(2) Preparation for college is usually considered the business of the 

 secondary schools and academies. However, college preparation consists 

 of everything a student goes through up to the time of college entrance. 



(3) Too much thought is sometimes given to preparation for college, 

 especially in the high schools. The high school curricula are sometimes 

 designed as though all high school students would enter college, while as a 

 matter of fact a very small proportion of them do. 



(4) Nevertheless, preparation for college is confessedly inadequate. 

 There is great complaint that students come to college insufficiently pre- 

 pared. If this complaint has good foundation when made by the classical 

 colleges, it must be doubly true when made by the technical and agricul- 

 tural colleges, because high schools and academies do very little in prepar- 

 ing their pupils for agricultural courses. 



(5) The work of the school garden to some extent meets this confessed 

 deficiency. It leads more directly toward the work of the technical and 

 agricultural colleges because it deals with the materials of those courses. 

 At the same time it strengthens the pupils' work in precisely those elements 

 where it is confessed to be weak from the standpoint of general training, 

 namely, in initiative and in independence of thinking. This is because the 

 school garden deals with concrete subjects and phenomena instead of with 

 abstract ideas and mere words. 



