36 
GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 
Active cooperative association permits rare intimacy with 
other souls, so that cooperation may be said to be a great 
revealer of character. Scarcely an emergency in life arises 
where a just estimate of human nature is not acutely needed. 
Even in the sporting world it does not come amiss, judging 
by that delicious bit of dialogue between young Nathaniel 
Shaler and the village character, who, it will be remembered, 
invariably got licked. ^ 
” Sam, you ought to quit fighting ; you are n’t good at it.” 
” My boy,” said ‘he, ” I am the best fighter in this here 
county, but I ain’t good at judging men.” 
The point need not be argued further, that science and 
cooperation go far toward making the sort of men and women 
the world wants. If this is true, then the school world must 
in time adequately educate in these two directions. The cause 
of science has already many champions ; and yet the very 
ones who are hot for science training in the schools are some- 
times lukewarm in the matter of training for cooperation. 
In the course of one short discussion on school management 
all sorts of conflicting opinions may be heard. One person 
sticks to it that school life should be and is competitive, while 
another contends that the present-day schoolroom is in essence 
not competitive. And then the talk wanders from the point, 
till some speaker feels obliged to proclaim that in many a 
school harmony reigns, that noble and generous personal traits 
are fostered, and that truth, courtesy, and love for knowledge 
are daily held up by devoted teachers to docile pupils. Not 
for a moment can this be doubted. The Pied Piper may 
never so successfully charm his young flock into following 
him through the flowery fields of learning, and yet in all the 
measures they tread there may not be one cooperative step. 
They advance, to be sure, but without getting any dicipline in 
1 "The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler.” 
