34 CHILDREN'S GARDENS 



The little child will some day be thrown upon the 

 world as an individual to earn its living, protect its 

 health, assume its burden of taxes and its share of 

 public morals. A great many children must under- 

 take these responsibilities at an age when they are 

 very easily misled by their environment, and several 

 years under the age when the law declares them no 

 longer infants. Our present public school system is 

 an absolute monarchy and hardly in the slightest de- 

 gree does it give any training in a moral assumption 

 of personal responsibility and 'independent thinking. 

 In fact, those bolder natures who decline to live in an 

 absolute monarchy and declare for individualism in 

 their instruction and rebellion against all that absolute 

 monarchy implies, here, in our American Republic, are 

 placed under the ban of the law and kept, against their 

 wills, in schools that are virtually prisons. These are 

 the boys and girls who play truant and they play 

 truant usually because they love out-of-doors with a 

 passion not to be subdued, and they cannot under- 

 stand the need for learning things that they cannot 

 use. The Children's Garden, based on the individual 

 plot and all that it means, is the best opportunity to 

 teach good civics without interfering with the present 

 school regulations. 



