INTRODUCTION 7 



had almost forgotten how to wonder. Not out of a book but 

 out of a garden children learn that 



... the world was built in order, 

 And the atoms march in tune ; 

 Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder, 

 The sun obeys them and the moon. 



It is a fact that children respond enthusiastically to those 

 mysterious forces which surround them, and which they must 

 gradually learn in a measure to control. It is next to im- 

 possible for a child to work a whole summer in his garden 

 without unconsciously tuning himself to certain universal laws. 

 While he is grubbing in the earth, stirring the soil untir- 

 ingly so as to let in the moisture and the air, nature's secrets 

 are sinking deep into his heart. And there they abide, living 

 springs, ready to bubble up and to sweeten and purify his 

 whole life. 



New wonders are waiting for him each morning : to-day he 

 is excited over the upspringing of his first onion seedling ; 

 to-morrow he proudly views a patch of corn ; soon his own 

 plants are towering above his head. He sees how gracefully 

 they can bend before the wind just because they are so stoutly 

 buttressed with special roots against sudden storms. He sees 

 how each stalk by its presence helps all the others to stand 

 erect. He sees how each organ of each single plant has gradu- 

 ally adapted itself with marvelous nicety to serve the whole 

 organism. He finds all sorts of curious things to wonder about. 

 He wonders at the clever packing away, within a seed, of ra- 

 tions enough to start a plantlet on its life march, and thus he 

 gets an idea of the provision made for all the new babies of 

 the world. He wonders how the soil can make over every atom 

 that is unsavory or unclean, an apple core or a bruised butter- 

 fly, to the purposes of order and beauty. Surely one of the 

 finest uses of a garden is to reveal Mother Earth to children. 



