356 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



could spare no time for the garden. The work of gardening fell 

 to the lot of the already overworked woman. Usually, there- 

 fore, the plot cultivated was small and the vegetables were few 

 and insufficient in variety and quantity. By enlisting the chil- 

 dren in garden work several purposes were served. The garden 

 serves as a laboratory for teaching the fundamental principles 

 of agriculture. The children find a healthy summer occupation, 

 and those who are too young for the heavier farm work are 

 unconsciously acquiring knowledge and skill which is certain to 

 make farm life attractive and satisfying to them eventually 

 while it gives them an immediate consciousness of and pride in 

 adding to the family comfort and in saving "mother's" strength. 

 School gardening can be made a valuable adjunct to country 

 schools in the corn belt because of its educative value to the 

 child and its effect upon the community as well. In truck grow- 

 ing regions some other form of agricultural work should be 

 employed because children are pressed into service at home so 

 young that gardens lose their educational value. In using the 

 environment, emphasis must always be put upon the principles 

 involved and immediate things should be used as stepping stones 

 to more remote things. The gardening work was in no sense 

 supposed to react immediately upon family incomes by pro- 

 ducing vegetables that could be sold; but was expected to react 

 indirectly through the added understanding of agricultural 

 principles and through a raised standard of living. Through the 

 school garden the child at an age when he is forming tastes and 

 habits for life can learn all the fundamentals of farming in 

 which he is expected to take an interest later on. 



THE MOONLIGHT SCHOOLS OF KENTUCKY 1 



CORA WILSON STEWART 



THE various impressions which have prevailed throughout the 

 country in regard to moonlight schools have been amusing in- 

 deed. Some have imagined them to be schools where children 

 studied and played and scampered on the green like fairies in 

 the moonlight. Others have believed them to be ideal courting 



i Adapted from Surrey, Vol. 35: 429-31, Jan., 1916. 



