SCHOOL GARDENS. 159 



upwards of seventy school-gardens established without any 

 special grant or help, and conducted solely, to use Supt. 

 MaoKay's words, " to make the educational work of the school 

 more useful." And this is the aim with which every school- 

 garden should be managed. As Inspector Cowley, writing of 

 the Macdonald School Gardens, says : — 



V While designed to encourage the cultivation of the soil as an ideal 

 life-work they are intended to promote above all things else symmetrical 

 education of the individual. They do not aim at education to the 

 exclusion of utility, but they seek education through utility and utility 

 through education. The garden is the means, the pupil is the end." 



A union convention of the teachers of six of the eastern 

 counties of Ontario, after visiting 1 and inspecting the 

 Bowesville school garden adopted a resolution approving of 

 the introduction of such gardens into both urban and rural 

 districts. 



The Values of the Right School Garden. — These claims are 

 not too strong when one considers the kinds and extent of 

 education for which the school-garden may give opportunity. 



Physical conditions are favorable — exercise, fresh air, sun- 

 shine. 



Intellectual powers are exercised in the planning of the 

 work, in distinguishing causes and effects among a complex of 

 contemporaneous phenomena, in understanding the science or 

 theory of the different arts mentioned under " Exercises for 

 the School Garden," and thereby contributing to the habit 

 of inquiry — to the scientific attitude of mind. Learning 

 to recognize species and variety of plants, and distinguishing 

 weeds from economic seedlings, exercise the senses and 

 judgment. 



1 The visit was made in the last week of May, '05. About 300 teachers drove out 

 from Ottawa eight miles to inspect the garden. 



