8o 
GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 
cutting a number in the handle of each tool, so that it may 
easily be kept in place. 
Devices of all sorts for keeping the tools in order and in 
good shape will be suggested by the pupils themselves. This 
is one way of developing responsibility. At any rate, they 
should make their own rules and suggest their own penalties. 
Children may be chosen by vote to regularly inspect the tool 
room. How the tools were cared for in his class is told by 
a boy of thirteen in an exercise in written English : 
OUR GARDEN TOOL HOUSE 
The tools of the young boy gardeners of the Rice School are kept by 
a committee of boys called The Tool Committee. Their duty is to keep 
the house where the tools are kept in perfect condition and to provide 
the boys with tools. If a tool breaks or comes apart, there is a boy who 
volunteers to repair it. 
When the boys come to work in the garden, they form a line near 
the tool house and ask one of the committee to give him a certain tool 
which he needs for his kind of work in the garden. When a boy asks 
for a spade, he must need it for digging up the soil, or if he asks for a 
hoe, he must need it for gathering up the rubbish, and when he asks for 
a rake, he probably needs it to take the rocks out of his garden. Then 
there is a scratcher to pulverize the soil or to dig around some roots, and 
then there is a trowel to make holes in the ground and a water can to 
water the gardens. We try to have the tool house as clean as possible 
and see that everything is in its right place. 
One season’s experience will prove how great an advantage 
it is to associate with the gardening some instruction in 
woodwork. Not a day will pass without a frantic call for the 
carpenter. A few labels are unexpectedly needed ; the han- 
dle of a shattered spade is to be cleverly sharpened into a 
useful dibble ; a support must be devised for the hop vines 
before nightfall. Plenty of stakes and raffia should be always 
on hand for tying up vines and high-headed plants. Raffia 
