CORRELATION WITH SCHOOL WORK 329 



Language. — Too frequently in some schools the language 

 work consists in the learning of rules of proper speech and 

 proper writing. How to talk and how to write are both better 

 learned by good practice. The rules, of course, are also im- 

 portant. It is very necessary when young people are receiving 

 their training in language work for them to have something 

 suitable about which to talk and write. Every-day things 

 form the best subjects for such practice. Many of the every- 

 day things soon become old to the child and newer things 

 must be taken up. Eight here the garden work fills the need. 

 With new things to tell and new lessons to consider, young 

 people will never lack for interesting subjects in language 

 work. Let the children tell of their experiences in testing 

 corn. Let them tell of the reasons for certain samples being 

 better than others, the advantages of certain methods, reasons 

 for their choice of certain vegetables to plant, methods which 

 they have followed during the garden season, enemies which 

 they found and how they combated them, and a hundred 

 other subjects. 



Language based on garden work may be both oral and 

 written. When pupils are asked to write essays they will 

 prefer subjects about which they have been working. They 

 will write much better than if their subjects related to foreign 

 lands and vague things. Essays or descriptions based on 

 garden work will come spontaneously; the language will be 

 their own and not that of some author. 



. Incidental knowledge is gained when language work is 

 based on practical things. The child is not only taught to 

 speak and write, but to learn something else at the same time. 

 Thus language is not in itself an abstract thing. It is closely 

 linked with the doings of the child and with his environment 

 (Fig. 158). Correct speech and correct writing expressions 

 are gained more readily when based upon real rather than 

 visionary things. 



Reading. — Courses of reading, as laid down in text books, 



