AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? 



in many gardens by allowing the children a wide 

 range in the hours assigned for the general care of 

 their plots, within which time they may come and 

 go as they please. When the garden is accepted 

 as a part of the regular school routine, this 

 period is sometimes arranged by the principal, 

 who, knowing the time best suited for garden 

 work, may interrupt any grade lesson to send the 

 children out, perhaps to take advantage of the 

 hour after a sudden shower to mulch their grounds, 

 to grasp some fleeting opportunity to study in- 

 sect life, or to note some passing state or stage of 

 nature. "The grade work may be made up any 

 time; showers and sun do not wait; the garden 

 cannot," was the gist of one Canadian teacher's 

 belief and practice. 



There should, of course, be some definite half 

 hours set apart for possible outside work. 

 Many times such periods will be suitable for it. 

 When they are not, they can be filled by indoor 

 work. Any suggestion that recess time be given 

 over to gardening because it offers change of posi- 

 tion, change of thought, fresh air and exercise 

 for the larger as well as the smaller muscles; that 

 in quality and quantity of work it may be adapted 

 to all years, should be peremptorily vetoed on the 

 ground that to be ordered to a task, however 

 pleasant, is to take away the feeling of release from 

 responsibilities, the sense of freedom, which is the 

 very essence of a recess period. It should give 

 the freedom to do as one pleases, to associate with 

 '4 179 



