WORK OF GOBBET SCHOOL GARDEN, LYNN, MASS. 
]\Ir. Philip Emerson, principal of the 
Cobbet School, Lynn, iMass., gave an 
interesting story of the development 
and results of school gardening in 
Lynn, at the conference on Village 
Betterment held by the Massachusetts 
Civic League, which was recently re- 
ported in these pages. Mr. Emerson 
called attention to the complementary 
points of view of teachers and social 
workers — the one studying society in 
order to formulate rightly the ends of 
education, the latter looking to the 
schools as a prime means of securing 
social advance. Pie therefore urged 
the citizens present to combat the nar- 
row view that guaged the curriculum 
and the success of the schools by the 
fitness of their graduates for service 
in business offices alone. 
iMr. Emerson sketched the develop- 
ment of the school garden movement 
in Lynn, starting with the endeavor to 
improve the appearance of cheerless 
schoolyards of bare gravel by the ad- 
dition of shrubbery and flower beds, 
and continuing with the development 
of systematic instruction in garden- 
ing in some of the schools until the 
city had won the lion's share of the 
prizes offered yearlj" by the Massachu- 
setts Horticultural Society. He told 
some interesting and inspiring stories 
of home gardens by boys of the tene- 
ment districts and by others at their 
summer homes in the country. The 
Cobbet School of Lynn not only furn- 
ishes school gardens that serve as 
models for home gardens, and as 
means of training children to care 
aright for gardens at their homes, but 
it also raises, hardy plants for distri- 
bution to home gardens, either as 
prizes or at a merely nominal cost. 
Hundreds were thus distributed last 
year, and the number is increased this 
present season. Such work will 
eventually make a marked effect upon 
the appearance of a town or a dis- 
trict of a city. The speaker urged the 
value of the training incidental to 
garden work, ^^'hereas the ordinary 
school with its book work developed 
a child’s capacity for managing ab- 
stract ideas, it did little for his capa- 
city to manage concrete ideas, and 
next to nothing to train youth to 
manage things or to manage men. In 
garden work together boys and girls 
got right down on the ground, in 
close contact with things and with 
concrete ideas, and necessarily were 
practiced in working as leaders and 
under the leadership of others. He 
appealed to the citizens present to 
support and stimulate the movement 
for school gardens and like construc- 
tive work in their communities. To 
show the need of such support in some 
communities he contrasted Lynn and 
Malden. In one the School Commit- 
tee started the work with an appro- 
priation of much over a hundred dol- 
lars, and had regularly contributed 
tools, soil and other needs since its 
inception. Moreover they had now 
assigned fifty minutes’ time to indus- 
trial work weekly, placing school 
gardening on the same footing as the 
three r's, therefore, and allowing the 
total time for the year to be assigned 
two weeks where it could be spent to 
the best advantage. The Boston 
Transcript, however, reports the Mal- 
den Committee as consenting to allow 
school gardening if it took no time 
from school hours and no money 
from the school treasury, then fearing 
they had been too liberal concluded 
it had better not be attempted at all. 
Citizens and parents must see that 
education is practically broad and not 
narrowly conservative. School gar- 
dens should be called for in every 
community and teachers should be en- 
couraged to attend the new summer 
session of the Massachusetts Agri- 
cultural College 
The methods in use at the Cobbet 
School for stimulating home garden 
work are interesting and practical. 
The pupils are organized by neigh- 
borhoods, and a teacher is assigned 
to every group. This method secures 
continuity of leadership and plans 
from year to year, encourages neigh- 
borhood co-operation and exchanges, 
and enlists the older children of a 
street in instructing and aiding the 
younger. The home gardens are 
judged monthly under this plan,, 
boards of judges from among the old- 
er children visiting all gardens and 
scoring them on a scale of points. 
This enables the granting of prizes in 
the form of seedling plants, bul1)b, 
garden magazines, automobile trips 
to market gardens and fine estates, 
etc. This keeps up the interest of 
childhood. A third feature of the 
plan is the issuance of circulars from 
the Cobbet School Press from week 
to week suggesting how to meet the 
difficulties of the city child who ^visll- 
es a garden, and advising what seeds 
or plants to buy and how to care for 
them. This plan can easily be adapt- 
ed to any neighborhood by gather- 
ing a band of children as a garden 
club, inspiring and guiding them in 
home garden work along the lines 
presented. Some could give the 
money needed, some the leadership, 
while many should do what is best, 
combine the two , modes of helping. 
Mr. Emerson showed how naturallj' 
the organization of school garden 
work, with supervisors for different 
garden plots, groups of workers un- 
der foremen, undertaking brief writ- 
ten contracts — led out into a broad 
social organization of a school’s life. 
Such organization, he contended, was 
the best means of preparing jmuth for 
efficient action in the adult life of their 
community. He deprecated the elab- 
orate machinery of many citA' schools 
and their emphasis upon the main- 
tenance of order within the school 
building, but praised the funda- 
mental idea that the youth should 
learn to co-operate on a democratic 
basis for securing their common wel- 
fare as a .social body. He outlined 
the work of his own school in provid- 
ing apparatus for the playground, 
raising funds by garden work, by a 
fair held by the girls, and by taxes 
which might be paid in cash or in la- 
bor. He emphasized the two lines of 
the Cobbet School, toward similar 
development of pupil organization at 
plans of or.ganization and more varied 
forms of social work and co-operation 
on productive lines, and recommended 
the general plan for adoption else- 
where. 
