THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN 



tion to manual training, the school garden, whose 

 influence and worth had already been demon- 

 strated at Toronto in the Broadview Gardens at- 

 tached to the Boys' Brigade Institute,* and on a 

 larger scale by Dr. Mac- 

 Kay, superintendent of 

 education in the Nova 

 Scotia schools. As early 

 as 1904, Nova Scotia had 

 some 79 gardens, and the 

 maritime provinces have 

 sent the greater number 

 of teachers to Macdonald 

 Institute for the spring 

 and summer courses. 



The Macdonald school 

 gardens put in the back- 

 ground European ideas 

 of utility, whether eco- 

 nomic or as preliminary 

 of agriculture. 



Section of a "Group" Gar- 

 den : On k or Two Children 

 ON Each Vegetable Plot 



to a scientific study 

 insisting that "nearly all such 



♦ This Institute, under Captain Atkinson, is a self-governing club, 

 carrying on evening classes; two joint stock corporations (one dealing 

 in honey, one in maple syrup); and a garden on a township plan of 

 control. The boys pay for their garden privilege. They make what 

 they can from their produce, even being allowed to speculate by 

 hiring some of their fellow farmers to work for them or by buying 

 standing crops. This practice is guarded somewhat, and is defended 

 on the ground that "such is life," where foresight, brains, industry, 

 rightly count more than short-sighted contentment with being just 

 a " hewer of wood" or unskilled tiller of land. Plots near the street 

 are sold only to good gardeners. In 1908 one boy took |i8 in prize 

 money alone. 



2 15 



