3 68 
Garden Work 
Even the atmosphere is laden with plant food, though we cannot see 
it, four-fifths of it being nitrogen, which when changed into nitrates is 
valuable plant food. The carbon dioxide which we breathe out is taken in 
by the leaves of the plants and changed into plant tissue, &c., while in the 
manufacture of these substances oxygen is given out by the leaves, which 
enables us to breathe and live. 
In pointing out these lessons to the gardening class, which are all 
essential if the highest educational value is to be obtained from the teach- 
ing of gardening, the teacher can impress upon the children’s minds the 
magnitude and the precision of Nature's laws, and how they could only 
have been arranged and maintained by a Power far above that possessed 
by man, viz. God, Who is all-powerful. This, of course, need not be thrust 
upon the children; but the teacher who has the children’s welfare at heart 
will not hesitate to present a lesson to them in such a way that it will have 
a beneficial effect on their future life. Thus it may open up, in a very 
practical way, a subject which is at present, perhaps, only very imperfectly 
understood. 
Thus we see the great opportunities and the great responsibilities of 
the teacher of gardening. He has the children at an age when they are 
most difficult to handle, between the ages of eleven and fourteen, when 
they know their time of school discipline will soon be at an end, and, 
being out of the classroom, they are almost inclined to throw off restraint. 
But a teacher who thoroughly understands gardening, and who is adapted 
for teaching, will have no difficulty in interesting his scholars in this class, 
and then, indeed, his task will be a light one. It will consist, in some cases, 
even in restraining the scholars and guiding them on the proper lines: the 
children become so anxious over their work, in such a hurry to see their 
garden free from weeds, that they may even hoe up the seedling plants, or 
in thinning their crops may be in such a hurry to get it done and get on 
with other work that they pull up the plants carelessly and leave the re- 
maining ones with the soil too much loosened round them. The teacher 
will always have to be on the outlook for any hurrying over work and 
check it at once. 
The children who should be taught gardening are those who will be 
working on the land when they grow up. These should certainly have the 
preference when selecting the pupils for the gardening class, as such train- 
ing will, if rightly directed and understood, be a considerable help to them 
in years to come. It is a pity that each scholar in every school cannot 
have some practical training in such an important and helpful subject as 
