WHAT MAKES A SCHOOL GARDEN WORTH WHILE 19 



Teachers are not the only ones who, in this particular, mis- 

 interpret the garden movement. A piece of work recently 

 done by a certain social betterment committee in a small 

 Massachusetts town may, just here, add its own word to the 

 discussion. It appears that the determination of these public- 

 spirited people to carry on a vacation garden had unfortu- 

 nately been made too late in the spring to connect properly 

 with the public school of the vicinity, or to enable the leaders 

 to make friends with the children. They, however, did their 

 best. The events of that summer as they are described pass 

 before us with the vividness of moving pictures. The open- 

 ing day arrived, and with it tumbled in a troop of boys and 

 girls bent on getting, in some form or other, an adequate 

 return for their curiosity. The ample field, generously loaned 

 for this project, lay before them ; it had already been plowed 

 and raked, and tidily divided off into sections. Next the ladies 

 and gentlemen of the committee distributed the seeds, and, 

 amid some confusion, gave excellent instruction upon the 

 rules for planting. The exact places where the seeds were to 

 go had already been decided, and these were explained by 

 means of a carefully prepared map. 



At the season's end a devoted member of this committee, 

 very expert in horticulture but very inexpert in dealing with 

 children, in almost these very words described the outcome 

 of their summer of good works : 



" Yes, the gardens themselves turned out well enough. We 

 directors, of course, had to do a good deal of drudgery, such 

 as weeding, ourselves. By watering thoroughly in the eve- 

 nings my sister and I managed pretty well to keep things 

 from drying up. But the children, I am sorry to say, were dis- 

 orderly and ungrateful. I can't tell you what we went through. 

 Excepting a few dear little girls who came regularly, not one 

 of them seemed a bit interested. I never saw lazier boys. 



