Professor Geddes's Address 121 



studies such as those we see around us; and these all 

 go towards building up the artist's outlook. These 

 in turn prepare for an easy and instructive beginning 

 of the meteorologist's outlook also. In the nearest 

 gutter, in the shower, or by help of a tap and a 

 sand-heap, we can trace or reproduce the wearing 

 down of the earth — the geologist's outlook. With a 

 few flower-pots and bulbs and pinches of seed we have 

 true key-notes to the botanist's season-drama. Facili- 

 ties for Nature-study then, there are everywhere; and 

 the child needs only a little encouragement and guid- 

 ance to make true and vital use of them — use which 

 will increase year by year with his growth. 



But of all the facilities which teacher and school 

 board can provide, which central authority can en- 

 courage, let me plead for the school-garden. The 

 school playground and bath, the workshop and cook- 

 ing-room, the museum and laboratory, have each and 

 all duly passed through the usual stages of develop- 

 ment — first " fad ", then luxury, then convenience, and 

 finally necessity: the urgent need remaining is thus 

 that of the school-garden. It is but a few years ago 

 since French educationists, formerly so satisfied with 

 their school premises and all else according to code, 

 took this matter up, and now, in the 33,000 communes 

 which make up France, there are 28,000 school-gardens. 

 Russia has followed fast with 8,000 or more. In Wur- 

 temberg and other parts of Germany, in the other 

 Continental countries, in the United States also, this 

 progress has rapidly begun. Yet this country has 

 probably not yet a hundred in all her schools put 

 together. 



Even in the most spacious and undeveloped suburbs 



