Miscellaneous. 



220 



[March 1908. 



work but with the drawing. It bungs 

 that too into the realm of reality. It gives 

 the child a reason for doing the work 

 that is set for him to do, and it adds life 

 and interest to every feature of the 

 drawing work, every department of it. 

 It connects itself and may connect itself 

 much more than it has in the past, as Mr. 

 Baldwin has shown in his Hyannis work, 

 with the number work. He has shown 

 what it does for the arithmetic work. 

 Childreu find in connecting their arith- 

 metic with their gardening work they 

 are dealing with real things in a real way 

 and for a purpose which is their own, for 

 every problem has an end. They are 

 doing these because there is something 

 there that they want to find out. The 

 children write in connection with it 

 because there are things there that they 

 cannot describe in words. It is because 

 they want to use these things that 

 makes the work so effective. It connects 

 itself not only with the language, the 

 number and drawing, but it connects 

 itself and lays a foundation for a much 

 more advanced work in the higher 

 department of school, and I have felt 

 very strongly that the school garden is 

 an essential to the high school ; it is the 

 most effective laboratory a high school 

 could use. The department of biology 

 would be vitalized if it were connected 

 with the school garden ; familiarity with 

 the features of school gardening would 

 do as much for the study of literature, 

 rendering plain the figures of rhetoric 

 with which literature abounds. I believe 

 it is idle for any teacher to try to teach 

 literature by explaining in words what 

 these figures mean. Both for the high 

 and the elementary schools the school 

 garden is to come in and will be found 

 to be the most effective and useful 

 laboratory that can be maintained 

 to-day. A third reason is the social side 

 of the garden. It connects itself so 

 closely with the home life of the child. 

 That is our one great ueed at present. 

 It is to be the work of the immediate 

 future to bring the school and home 

 back into their old-time relations, and I 

 think by means of this work it can be 

 done. The children are applying at 

 home what they have learned at the 

 school garden, and this will be a means 

 of binding the two together. Such 

 work as Mr. Hastings has done in Fitch- 

 burg is useful, especially in a city where 

 perhaps a school garden may not be 

 practicable, but where in every home 

 there are opportunities for giving the 

 children the same sort of training. 

 These seem to me, Mr. Chairman, the 

 three most essential f eatures ; the fact 

 that it appeals to the instinctive craving 

 Of the child for life process, the fact that 



it renders vital other school work, and 

 that it tends to connect the school and 

 home as nothing else does. I may seem 

 extravagant in my claims, but I have 

 learned to become interested in it, and 

 every year as I have watched it, it has 

 grown upon me as one of the valuable 

 features possible in public school work. — 

 Transactions of the Massachusetts Horti- 

 cultural Society for the year 1906, Part II. 



HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR 

 SCHOOL GARDEN TEACHERS. 



By F. A. Wauch, 

 Professor of Horticulture and Landscape 

 Gardening, Mass., Agricultural 

 College, Amherst, Mass. 



In all the conferences on school 

 gardens that we have held, and in all 

 discussions on these topics the first 

 practical question to come up has been 

 that of knowing how to make the garden 

 itself. In other words, the horticultural 

 question seems tu be fundamental. 

 Over and over this point has been 

 emphasized, that a school garden must 

 be successful first as a garden before it 

 can be a successful educational enter- 

 prise. This, of course, is requiring a good 

 deal of the teacher, because horticulture 

 is a long art; and if one must be an 

 expert teacher, and before that an ex- 

 pert horticulturist, that is certainly 

 asking a good deal for 45 dollars a month. 

 It is hardly to be expected that every 

 school teacher will become an expert 

 horticulturist, and yet we cannot for a 

 moment relax our emphasis on this 

 point. Again and again it appears im- 

 peratively that we must know more 

 horticulture. Having determined so 

 much, the next question follows closely 

 after. Where, how, and when are school 

 garden teachers to get their knowledge 

 of horticulture ? Some one said a long 

 time ago that to train a good woman 

 you must begin with her grandmother, 

 In a somewhat similar way, to make a 

 good horticulturist you should begin 

 with the grandmother. Horticultural 

 education ought to begin early. It 

 certainly is a great advantage to eveiy 

 teacher to be born on a farm. The early 

 farm experience is invaluable. It is 

 especially so to a young man, but even 

 the girls get a good deal out of farm life* 

 That experience of childhood, on the 

 farm, is worth everything to the one 

 who takes it rightly. I know there are 

 som9 to whom this farm life has meant 

 nothing, and my heart bleeds for those 

 men and women who look back on such 

 a childhood with bitterness. To me it 

 seems the most delightful experience $ 



