CHILDHOOD IN THE GARDEN 



childhood may have faded into the indistinguishable 

 background of the past, old people have no trouble in 

 finding the old paths, in hearing again the murmur 

 of the fountain and the voices of vanished playmates, 

 or in remembering what flowers had first bloomed for 

 them. And those among us thus fortunate in their 

 youth who come back into a garden, find their memo- 

 ries stocked with all sorts of useful odds and ends of 

 information regarding the best way to make this or the 

 other thing grow, how deep seeds are to be planted, 

 when to separate perennials or transplant annuals, with 

 heaven only knows what beside ; and this though years 

 have intervened since we closed the gate of our child- 

 hood garden behind us, with never the time since to 

 open another. 



Gardens resemble reading in this, that where you 

 have not acquired a taste for either in youth, you will 

 never completely acquire it. And yet the atmosphere 

 of flowers, as that of books, should be incorporated into 

 the personality of every one, insuring as it does in 

 a turbulent and hazardous world no small degree of 

 happiness. Humanity has long joined in the ac- 

 knowledgment that the love of reading is one of the 

 great blessings of life, a rampart against ennui, an 

 asylum from sorrow. Just as certain is the relief 

 afforded by a garden. When you plant in a child's 

 heart the love of its tended beauty, you are giving him 

 an open sesame to the palace of peace, a refuge from 



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