AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS 



improvement in manners and showed so strong a 

 love for tlie garden work, that, as he was about to 

 be taken to court, his teacher sHpped into his 

 hand a bit of paper and bade him give it to the 

 judge. It read ''This is my best digger," and bore 

 the teacher's signature. The judge upon weigh- 

 ing its mute appeal sentenced the boy, not to the 

 reformatory among all sorts of criminals, but to a 

 farm for refractory boys, where the environment 

 was better and safer than his own home. When 

 last heard from he was a happy, contented little 

 fellow striving to deserve the opportunity to live 

 and work upon a big farm. It was Dr. Hodge of 

 Clark University, I think, who once said that the 

 quickest way he knew to keep our prisons and 

 reformatories empty was to give every boy a piece 

 of ground, however small, to cultivate for ten 

 years of his boyhood. Last summer, in Provi- 

 dence, an incorrigible truant had one of the prize 

 gardens. 



Under gardens for special purposes, one might 

 mention those in connection with day^xamps for 

 tuberculous children, such as the one conducted 

 during the summer of 1909 in connection with 

 Bellevue Hospital, New York. Each day some 

 fifty children were gathered there on the floating 

 hospital boat moored to the dock, with a gangway 

 crossing to that part of the hospital yard which 

 formerly held the dump heap. Thanks to the 

 interest of the International School Farm League, 

 the Woman's Auxiliary of the hospital, and the 



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