Miscellaneous. 



318 



[May 1907. 



the vacation work— or pleasure— are the excursions to the market gardens of 

 Arlington where the children are enabled to see on a large scale what they have 

 already seen on a tiny scale in their little city plots. The work clone in the vacation 

 months is in tlie entire charge of a voluntary committee iu co-operation with the 

 school authorities. There has been an attempt to co-operate with the vacation 

 schools. 



If a child has attended school regularly, and has been able to care for his 

 garden in the summer, he has seen performed under his eyes a complete cycle in 

 the vegetable life. Add to this the correlation with his other school studies, and 

 the garden becomes a real part, and a valuable part not only of his life but of the 

 life of the world. 



In his arithmetic he can find the area of his own garden instead of an 

 imaginary field ; from his window box he can study a right angle ; in his manual 

 training class he makes the window box, the markers, and sometimes even the 

 tools ; in his geography he learns in what part of the country is grown the hemp, 

 flax, and grains, specimens of which he sees in his own plot; in his drawing class 

 he draws a flower or seed from his own garden instead of one brought by the 

 teacher; in the cooking class the girl cooks her own vegetables ; in the language 

 class the boys and girls write letters to the seedmen for catalogues or to the 

 agricultural department for seeds, and keep diaries of what goes on in the garden. 

 Thus the garden and all pertaining to it mean something. So many are its advan- 

 tages that it seems to demand a place in every school. 



The necessary money for the support of the gardens was supplied in the 

 beginning by a voluntary committee. More help has come each year from the 

 city, and ultimately the whole responsibility will rest upon the city. 



I have spoken somewhat of the educational value of this garden work. I 

 want to say just a word about the economic value. Boston is so situated that its 

 suburbs are near at hand and very accessible ; that is, Boston has special facilities 

 for an outward movement. It will therefore be of the greatest service to the city 

 if, by teaching the children to be interested in the cultivation of the soil, the 

 congested districts be relieved. 



SCHOOL GARDENS AS A PREPARATION FOR COLLEGE. 



(By F, A. Waugh, Professor of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening, 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass.) 

 The following points were brought out :— 



(1) School garden work is many sided and bears on many things. Its value 

 in the preparation for college is only one of these things and not the most important. 



(2) Preparation for college is usually considered the business of the 

 secondary schools and academies. However, college preparation consists of every- 

 thing a student goes through up to the time of college entrance. 



(3) Too much thought is sometimes given to preparation for college, 

 especially iu the high schools. The high school curricula are sometimes designed 

 as though all high school students would enter college, while as a matter of fact 

 a very small portion of them do. 



(4) Nevertheless, preparation for college is confessedly inadequate. There 

 is great complaint that students come to college insufficiently prepared. If this 

 complaint has good foundation when made by the classical colleges, it must be 

 doubly true when made by the technical and agricultural colleges, because high 

 schools and academies do very little in preparing their pupils for agricultural 

 courses. 



