WHAT MAKES A SCHOOL GARDEN WORTH WHILE 33 
discussing the relative importance of traits which they posi- 
tively required in their employees. With not a shade of dis- 
agreement they named what in their opinion were the three 
highest qualities, in the following order : loyalty, power of 
cooperation, efficiency. A schoolman who was within earshot 
began, with a Knowledge-is-Power air, to protest against this 
low rating of efficiency. But his academic argument was 
quickly swept off its feet. The reply flashed back that in 
real life efficiency, admirable though it is of course, has no 
positive value uncombined with loyalty and cooperation. And 
they would not yield an inch. 
There is a long list of incidental values to be gained from 
a well-conducted garden. These may be reviewed quickly. 
It is, for instance, a great thing for a child to have learned 
to use intelligently the multitude of books, periodicals, news- 
papers, maps, tables, and reports bearing upon the business 
of up-to-date gardening. The vocabulary of a state statistician 
would not ordinarily fit the comprehension of an impulsive 
girl of fourteen. But if this girl has set her heart on getting 
for her friends certain information which they must have, 
rather than disappoint them she will make it her business 
to conquer a mere matter of words. 
Under the pressure of such a purposeful atmosphere a dic- 
tionary has been known to rise many degrees in importance 
in less than twenty-four hours. From a mere article of school- 
room furniture it can become a highly valued friend. Fur- 
thermore, respect for the producer, for the scholar, for any 
one who foregoes his own ease to add one little grain to the 
sum of human welfare, results from even a tiny bit of real 
investigation done by a child, of whatever age. 
The garden teacher, meanwhile, has been brought into 
surprisingly direct and human relations with the lives of his 
young people and with the problems of the community. The 
