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DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS 



off from normal living, the school garden comes 

 as a boon. In one large city, a certain number 

 of plots were divided off for a group of deaf and 

 dumb boys from a public institution. These lads, 

 from twelve to fourteen years of age, were given 

 plots I o X 45 feet. They cultivated the same crops 

 as boys who had worked one or two years and had 

 risen to the second and third grades in the garden 

 work. The asylum boys took their instructions 

 from the blackboard, found their tools by number 

 in the toolhouse, and went about their work in 

 happy silence. An occasional gesture or simple 

 demonstration from the monitor who supervised 

 their section was all they needed. Their beds 

 presented a higher average in appearance than 

 those of any other class. The class for cripples, 

 at DeWitt Clinton Park, New York, has already 

 been alluded to. 



Here also may be mentioned gardens maintained 

 in connection with detention schools, or homes for 

 morally delinquent children. In the former, the 

 garden must be conducted on very simple lines, 

 because the children stay for short periods only. 

 Sometimes there is a long period of waiting for 

 suitable conveyance to the home or prison to 

 which they have been sentenced. During this 

 time the boys can cultivate the garden. Those 

 who have had such an opportunity seem to enjoy 

 the work and are loath to leave it. One small boy, 

 so repeatedly up for punishment that it was known 

 his sentence would be severe, made such a decided 



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