Education. 



•58 



[July, 1911. 



create an interest in the children's minds 

 that will stimulate them to seek for 

 knowledge in this direction, they will 

 become intelligent workmen, and their 

 labour will increase the general pros- 

 perity of the island. If we can encourage 

 the children to look forward to homes 

 of their own, and this healthful out-of- 

 door work where they will derive 

 strength from the soil, it must have the 

 ultimate effect of producing a hardy 

 profit. 



Value of Education. — I have tried to 

 show that it is toward agriculture that 

 we in Jamaica should now turn our 

 attention. Now there is often seen in 

 our people a tendency to avoid the soil. 

 School gardens will, it properly used, 

 correct this tendency, and at the same 

 time give better ideas of agricultural 

 work than those which we have at 

 present. 



It is an old adage that " we must bend 

 the tree while it is young." It is there- 

 fore important that we should mould 

 our children's lives as far as possible in 

 the most approved ways along those 

 lines which they will most probably 

 have to follow. 



Functions of School Gardens.— The 

 general functions of the School Garden 

 may be classified as follows : — 



1st, and this I consider the most im- 

 portant. To bring the child in touch 

 with nature, and to enable him to appre- 

 ciate something of its wonder. It will 

 ever be the source of its greatest pleasure 

 and inspiration if he is taught to see 

 behind the flower the hand which paints 

 it. 



The efforts to draw out such observation 

 and to strengthen it by daily uses in the 

 many directions which a school garden 

 supplies, cannot fail to tell very power- 

 fully on the general mental and moral 

 nature of the child and in the up-bring- 

 ing of a good and a useful character. 



2nd. To develop the power of observ- 

 ation. 



Indifference to our general surround- 

 ings, due to lack of observation, is the 

 fatal cause of narrow knowledge and con- 

 sequently limited development. Nature 

 broadens out and blesses the miud 

 which recognises the many things which 

 she presents for consideration, and the 

 many lessons which she teaches for 

 practical conduct. 



3rd. To develop accuracy. The neces- 

 sary work connected with a school 

 garden, such as the laying out of beds 

 and the correct manipulation of the 

 tape line cannot be too highly estimated 

 as a valuable addition to a child's edu- 



cation. The ability to lay off a straight 

 line, and work to that line is, as most 

 employers of adult labour know, a power 

 that is largely absent from our working 

 population, especially in the country 

 districts. This glaring defect will be 

 most certainly corrected in such training 

 as a child will receive in connection with 

 a properly conducted school garden. 



4th. To train directly for life's voca- 

 tion, and to correct the tendency to 

 avoid agricultural pursuits now so 

 evident in certain portions of the island. 



In all countries where enforced labour 

 in any direction existed for a long 

 period, as soil cultivation did here for 

 the many years of slavery, the emanci- 

 pated people and their descendants have 

 generally manifested an aversion to that 

 description of labour. I venture to 

 express the opinion that no means of 

 curing this fault will be more effective 

 than those which the school gardens 

 afford. In the course of a few years, 

 instead of the aloofness from agriculture, 

 which we now witness in so many of our 

 intelligent young people, leading them 

 to reside in the cities and towns and to 

 search for employment in directions 

 already overcrowded, or to leave the 

 island, we shall find an eagerness to 

 follow a pursuit which is more fruitful 

 than most others, one full of real plea- 

 sure, and which if patiently and 

 perseveringly followed will not fail to 

 yield also profit in solid cash. 



School Gardens in Home Life. — The 

 large majority of our adult population 

 are apparently perfectly content with 

 their untidy environments, and it is to 

 be feared that we must look to the 

 rising generation for any general 

 advance in neat cottages with their well- 

 kept kitchen gardens and flowering 

 plants. 



If the children are trained intelligent- 

 ly, and their love for Nature excited 

 and enthusiasm evoked in the school 

 gardens, it will be well nigh impossible 

 for them not to carry improved taste 

 and improved habits into their homes. 

 It is more than the expression of a hope 

 that instead of cottages in the midst of 

 bush or with economic plants struck 

 anywhere and anyhow, we shall in time 

 see homesteads marked by evidence of 

 industry, order, care and comfort. 



In some of the schools which I have 

 visited, I have, on speaking to the 

 children, suggested to them that efforts 

 should be put forth in this direction. 

 Some cf the teachers have agreed to 

 visit the small gardens kept by the 

 children at their homes and award a 

 prize in the form of a book to the child 



