WHAT MAKES A SCHOOL GARDEN WORTH WHILE 25 



to new and unexpected conditions. These are the earliest 

 signs of leadership. 



By what has already been said, the art of the teacher is 

 seen to be distinctly constructive. Just here he will study to 

 give as naturally as possible, not merely to a select few but to 

 each young human being, such opportunities as are needed to 

 develop him out of a state of self-centered dependence into one 

 of freedom and fullest usefulness. To see that this happens 

 requires no small amount of insight and discretion. Some 

 pupils will need to be shaken out of their self-importance. A 

 "bossy" child, for instance, is usually disciplined by his co- 

 workers. Others, on the contrary, will be found lacking in 

 initiative and limp except while spurred by the persistent 

 vigilance of an older person and stimulated by the hope of 

 conventional reward. 



Garden work will, perhaps, in this way offer the golden 

 moment in which to break the fetters of an artificial school 

 life, for a true education garden can be managed so that the 

 child faces the conditions of the real world. A stern, uncom- 

 promising world to wrestle with it is indeed, but by good luck 

 he may face it with the supreme advantage of a clear-sighted, 

 yes, and devoted, friend by his side the teacher and 

 with an organized brotherhood of fellow workers, who will 

 make his success or his failure theirs. 



Let us consider for a moment a few of the special uses in 

 life to which the power of initiative can be put, and how it 

 can be further exercised in a garden. One thing is plain : if 

 any of us could rely upon traveling " personally conducted " 

 through life, the power to blaze new trails would be unneces- 

 sary. But each day's problem comes to every individual man 

 afresh, however humdrum or circumscribed his life. Some- 

 times it is the old one with new variations, and sometimes 

 it is a brand-new one. Is there any recipe for attacking a 



