PLOTTING AND PLANNING 
63 
they are often only too ready to assume. The other is the 
narrow way that leads over the crest ; and this, if followed, ’ 
means that the children gallantly do this work themselves. 
Well for them if they decide upon this latter path, for the 
exercise of clambering up such hills is in itself the best part 
of a liberal education. Moreover, the ravines and precipices 
which look so formidable to one lonely wayfarer can be con- 
quered right merrily if the pilgrims are companioned by a 
common cause which they have entered into with all their 
hearts. For in the plotting of a garden all the qualities which 
the youngsters possess in common, such as mathematical 
accuracy, initiative, patience, and good humor, are called out 
by the occasion and shared by all. Lucky children are they 
who, before their fingers grow clumsy, have a chance to acquire 
manual skill, and who, before their dispositions get cranky, 
can practice social combinations. 
If at this crisis mathematics makes for good gardening, it 
is just as sure that gardening makes for good mathematics. 
For it has been found that by the time the area, with all its 
jogs and irregularities, has been worked out, first on the land 
itself and then on paper, the width of the paths settled, and 
the beds outlined, not to enumerate all the details of second- 
ary importance, the "art of computation" and the "science 
of numbers " — in the language of the ancient textbooks- — 
will have lost all resemblance to a certain unpleasant specter of 
old, and will appear in friendliest guise as a flesh-and-blood 
reality. Experience, moreover, shows that no stimulus, how- 
ever artfully contrived, will whip a lagging scholar at so smart 
a gait along the road to quick and accurate figuring as a gen- 
uine obligation to his self-elected work and to his fellows. 
The load of measuring may be lightened according to the 
means employed. To begin with, gardeners are advised to 
invest in a surveyor’s tape. A garden line will be required 
