DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS 



has its moral effect on a child. It is useless 

 to expect untarnished morality from children 

 whose parents provide ramshackle outbuildings 

 and schools uninteresting and repellent outside 

 and in, where no playgrounds exist and where no 

 provision is made to keep investigating minds 

 safely busy when not occupied with lessons. Clothe 

 your outbuildings with vines, screen them with 

 groups of trees, plant your grounds with things 

 that invite the children to note their growth 

 or to enjoy their welcome shade. Make school 

 a delightful place in which to linger because it 

 has so many charming interests. Childish activity 

 whether of mind or body needs direction. As in 

 the childhood of the race morality was an un- 

 known thing, so too in childhood, some of the evils 

 that we most deplore are at certain ages largely 

 the outburst of the investigating spirit spending 

 itself upon what is near at hand in default of 

 better, happier things with which to fill otherwise 

 vacant moments. 



No scheme or plan for the decoration of the 

 rural school can be completed in one season, 

 but a beginning, pleasing to the eye, is a good 

 thing, a fertile seed of usefulness. 



In rural districts, gardens for experiment or 

 sample plots for observation are sometimes 

 possible even on a relatively microscopic scale. 

 Classroom demonstration of the qualities of soils 

 and other experiments may illustrate the growth 

 upon these small plots. The country boy, of 



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