CHILDHOOD IN THE GARDEN 



rosy of cheek, with eyes as clear as a woodland pool. 

 Wise in nature's ways, serene and merry, no nervous, 

 prematurely school-aged children, these. Possibly they 

 are a bit behind in the usual smattering of class-room 

 courses, but they are likely to have more than a passing 

 acquaintance with the actual habits of the grand old 

 mother, her birds and insects and plants, her lovely ap- 

 peals and eternal interests. 



Make your earliest school-room the garden and you 

 are not likely to regret it. You won't have to worry 

 over your boy or girl's anemia, or be troubled with 

 nerves out of kilter, or with the results of overstudy 

 and under-development. And if any child in the world 

 needs a garden to grow up in, it is the American child, 

 with its alert, sensitive mind, its too-tense ambition and 

 love of competition, its unconscious assimilation of the 

 spirit of hurry that so bedevils its elders. Out with 

 them, then ! Let the walls be high enough to give them 

 seclusion, let them have undisturbed long hours alone 

 there, let them come to feel and comprehend the sure, 

 slow methods of nature, its honesty and beauty. Let 

 them have a place where they can romp and shout and 

 tumble, and let them learn also how much patience and 

 devotion is required to bring even a flower, to per- 

 fection. 



My own earliest recollection is of an English garden 

 where the fragrance of wall-flowers lay sweet from June 

 to November, and where we were occasionally kept 



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