176 GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 
the scientific method simply means the path by which a 
person arrives at first-hand truth about the natural world. It 
means inquiring of Nature how her processes go on. It means, 
not thinking at a superior’s command, but thinking to satisfy 
an inner purpose whose fulfillment brings its own best reward. 
It teaches how to estimate a guess — a working hypothesis 
— at its true value, and how to prick the bubble of a sham. 
Some of its results, as shown in everyday living, are patience, 
simplicity, and sincerity. 
The examination of evidence from many sources leads to 
the conviction that by allying a garden with the time-honored 
subjects in schools, academic work may be greatly enriched. 
Instead of robbing these studies of so many golden minutes, 
the garden may kindle a fresh and unquenchable desire for 
their pursuit. Yet what adventurer will expect to step aside 
from the beaten path without getting into a tangle of diffi- 
culties ? One very common obstacle which some allow to 
deter them may easily be anticipated. A piece of industrial 
and social work like the garden, used as a practice ground for 
other studies, disturbs the peace of a cut-and-dried program. 
Although it is a positive nightmare to the good people who 
rely upon rigid sequence in courses of study, such programs 
are fast being left behind ; methods do indeed move. It is 
only one short generation since it was seriously required that 
children should spell according to the graded course of study 
ordained by the spelling book. And some remember very 
clearly the wail that attended the passing of the old speller. 
The teachers of those days, expressing their views colloquially, 
would doubtless have confessed that they were afraid, once 
their comfortable- prop was snatched away, that they would 
never know "where they were at." Yet, in spite of much 
protest, only good has probably come from the innovation of 
teaching not at the pace set by the dictates of theorists in a 
