42 
GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 
While scholars are growing in moral and intellectual vigor 
as they practice cooperation, the teacher gets insight into 
human nature, and wisdom for further guidance, through 
studying the play of cooperative forces. As has been more 
than once suggested, watching the formation of groups among 
students who have perfect freedom to combine as they please 
brings great returns. The youngsters of unlike dispositions 
and different intellectual and social gifts often seem pecu- 
liarly drawn to one another. And yet what the combinations 
are that will blend harmoniously cannot be predicted by the 
wisest. The reactions are as mysterious as those that take 
place in the chemical laboratory, where a tiny globule of crys- 
tal-clear fluid is dropped into a test tube containing a second 
colorless fluid, and lo ! a beautiful play of color. In the words 
of the butler in the play, "You never can tell, sir, you never 
can tell." 
At the call of a school emergency it may happen that 
some scholar whose ability has always struck the school- 
master as mediocre is all of a sudden voted by his classmates 
into a position of importance. The teacher’s first impulse — 
as natural as the breath he draws — is to interfere. Instead, 
however, he waits. As the game of life goes on, he is sur- 
prised to And that the judgment of this newly elected leader, 
however slow, is sound; his determination. Arm. By the grace 
of some hidden force he is making good. Every comrade is 
standing by him. At the finish this boy’s efficiency, hitherto 
unguessed by his teacher, has completely justified the confi- 
dence which "the fellows" placed in him. On the playground 
such revelations are common, but all too rare in school ! 
And yet it must ever be a matter for regret that so often 
the strength of a child’s personality lies sleeping until school 
days are finished, — all too early, perhaps, — and life takes him 
up. In the stress of life surely he is judged by his fellows. 
