PLOTTING AND PLANNING 71 



that one, even if suggested by a graybeard, is intrinsically 

 better than another ? although better it certainly proves for 

 the education of the young person whose heart is in it. 



In the course of all this plan making and unmaking, it is 

 inevitable that some false gods be shattered. City children, for 

 example, accustomed all their lives to banked-up flower beds 

 in public parks and gardens, seem possessed to perpetuate 

 these in their own gardening. They are not even content 

 with following their model with reasonable zeal, but in the 

 process of path making they will be seen carefully scooping 

 the earth out deeper and deeper, enhancing, as they firmly be- 

 lieve, this beautiful effect, which finally becomes grotesque, if 

 not actually gruesome in character. In a park, of course, this 

 special treatment of banking the earth is often given to bulbs 

 and to plants that have been nursed in hothouses and then 

 transplanted on the eve of blossoming for a few weeks' dis- 

 play. But in genuine, everyday gardening there is nothing 

 to be said in favor of such mounds. Pause a moment and you 

 will see that in such cases the water is drained off to a lower 

 level so quickly that the roots are sure to starve. 



So far we have been discussing the matters of general con- 

 cern ; the time has now come to talk over the various spe- 

 cialties. These, too, concern everybody, but not all to the same 

 degree. The wide difference in children's personality is now 

 brought into high relief. Students of a certain type, for in- 

 stance, are so constituted that they will quite contentedly carry 

 on a garden plot which is the exact counterpart of their neigh- 

 bor's. Perhaps they may as well be allowed to form this habit. 

 By some teachers no special obligation to such natures is 

 recognized, beyond letting them jog comfortably along the 

 great highways that others have trodden smooth, keeping 

 constantly at their heels, however, to see to it that no actually 

 assigned task is neglected. It seems often to be taken for 



