NEW LIFE IN OLD SUBJECTS 163 



It appeals, moreover, to both young and old, — to the school- 

 girl, to the business man as an avocation, to the woman as a 

 means of livelihood in her suburban home. 



Grown people will naturally gravitate into some specialty 

 that peculiarly attracts them. Whatever the undertaking, it is 

 reasonable to expect them to excel in matters requiring expe- 

 rience and judgment ; but we should not forget that children 

 have their preferences and their line of superiority as well. 

 They are the ones who see things at a flash. Often they 

 go far ahead of their elders in keen-eyed discovery, — and a 

 discovery surely has its intrinsic worth, whether made by a 

 professor or a kindergarten child. It is the selfsame fable 

 of the Mountain and the Squirrel that is every day being 

 enacted in one form or another. 



" If I 'm not so large as you, 

 You are not so small as I, 

 And not half so spry. . . . 

 If I cannot carry forests on my back, 

 Neither can you crack a nut." 



And surely in the gardening world every one finds his niche. 

 But however desirable it might seem to add gardening to 

 a scheme of liberal education, the daily program for every 

 school day stubbornly resists ; it is brimming full and running 

 over. Enthusiasts must therefore bring sober proof that the 

 time which gardening takes from conventional study is not 

 -merely time well invested, but that it can enrich by a sub- 

 stantial dividend these very subjects. One thing is constantly 

 being demonstrated : it is that trying to carry on success- 

 fully even the simplest garden kindles the desire for precise 

 knowledge. It is only too true that without the habit of ex- 

 actness the gardener finds before long that he is playing a 

 losing game. He sees that he may as well stop competing if 

 he cannot acquire skill enough to hold his own. This does 



