CHAPTER II 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL 

 GARDENS 



" Why should you give your pupils the benefit of a school garden? 

 Because it brings living principles home to the children, and school is 

 living — not a preparation for life. Because it enables the children 

 to solve for themselves, under the law of necessity, some of the most 

 difficult problems which the school course has to offer. . , Because 

 the garden supplies ideal conditions for cultivating the hand and the 

 heart as well as the head." — S. T. Palmer. 



" In town schools the best plan is to begin with the school garden 

 and emphasize the aesthetic side; then work out to beautify the 

 city, and on this basis work out to the great typical processes of 

 agriculture. In rural schools, the most successful agricultural in- 

 struction is that which begins with the agricultural activities of the 

 local environment, and which finds in these activities certain problems 

 which then become subjects of investigation, and even experiment 

 in a school garden." — B. M. Davis. 



SCHOOL gardens may be regarded from 

 several points of view and cultivated with 

 one or more of several aims in mind so 

 far as the immediate or future good of the child 

 is concerned. But whatever the special purpose, 

 there should be kept in mind the far reaching in- 

 fluences that will pervade a neighborhood when a 

 successful school garden so inspires the children 

 and parents that little gardens in home yard or 

 window box spring up as restful, cheerful bits of 

 4 41 



