INTRODUCTION . 7 
had almost forgotten how to wonder. Not out of a l^ook but 
out of a garden ehildren learn that 
. . . the world was built in order, 
And the atoms march in tune ; 
Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder. 
The sun obeys them and the moon. 
It is a fact that children respond enthusiastically to those 
mysterious forces which surround them, and which they must 
gradually learn in a measure to control. It is next to im- 
possible for a child to work a whole summer in his garden 
without unconsciously tuning himself to certain universal laws. 
While he is grubbing in the earth, stirring the soil untir- 
ingly so as to let in the moisture and the air, nature’s secrets 
are sinking deep into his heart. And there they abide, living 
springs, ready to bubble up and to sweeten and purify his 
whole life. 
New wonders are waiting for him each morning : to-day he 
is excited over the upspringing of his first onion seedling ; 
to-morrow he proudly views a patch of corn ; soon his own 
plants are towering above his head. He sees how gracefully 
they can bend before the wind just because they are so stoutly 
buttressed with special roots against sudden storms. He sees 
how each stalk by its presence helps all the others to stand 
erect. He sees how each organ of each single plant has gradu- 
ally adapted itself with marvelous nicety to serve the whole 
organism. He finds all sorts of curious things to wonder about. 
He wonders at the clever packing away, within a seed, of ra- 
tions enough to start a plantlet on its life march, and thus 'he 
gets an idea of the provision made for all the new babies of 
the world. He wonders how the soil can make over every atom 
that is unsavory or unclean, an apple core or a bruised butter- 
fly, to the purposes of order and beauty. Surely one of the 
finest uses of a garden is to reveal Mother Earth to children. 
