CHAPTER VI 

 AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? 



"It is of the utmost importance that children should acquire the 

 habit of cultivating a plot of ground long before the school life begins. 

 Nowhere as in the vegetable world can his action be so clearly traced 

 by him, entering in as a link in the chain of cause and effect." — 

 Froebel. 



"Give a child large interests and give them young." — Alice Free- 

 man Palmer. 



LESSONS and experimental work in the gar- 

 den will vary as it is or is not attached 

 "^ to a school, and somewhat according to 

 the children's knowledge of outdoor life. There 

 may be the difference between a review of some 

 topics and a first presentation of them. When 

 gardens come to be a part of the school cur- 

 riculum, a very large percentage of the nature 

 work now done indoors will be done outside. In 

 this department surely the garden should be 

 the "outer classroom of the school,'* to the 

 great advantage of both children and teacher. 

 Everywhere that the garden has been introduced 

 in connection with the school, the universal 

 testimony is that it stimulates the child to better 

 intellectual grasp of his studies. Even where it 



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