Illlllllllllilllllllllll SCHOOL GARDENS IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIH 
A Thousand Gardens. Thomas Jefferson Park, New York City. (Courtesy, Henry G. Parsons.) 
What the School Garden Will Mean to the Children 
of the World 
Extracts from an address delivered by 
Henry G. Parsons at the annual meeting 
of the Children’s School Farm League 
New York City 
The various Children’s Gardens that we have placed in operation, 
have been established to demonstrate their usefulness for all children, 
and we have summed up their general purpose in the words HEALTH, 
HAPPINESS, and EDUCATION. 
The increasing pleasure shown in the children’s faces tells its own 
story of Happiness. The exercise without strain, in the open air and 
sunshine, during the years when bones and muscles, heart and lungs are 
making most rapid growth, is the last and best word for present health, 
and future endurance. And then, woven through these hours of Happi¬ 
ness and healthy activity, is the wonderful Education of the Garden. 
For ages the garden has been the resort and inspiration of artists, 
poets, sages, and philosophers, and now we would turn your attention to 
it for the children of the land, as a place where they may learn the laws 
of success. 
Each child has a separate garden plot, on which he does all the work. 
A new interest and sense of responsibility comes with ownership. Often 
it is their first understanding of the rights of property owners, and this 
awakening is to have a tremendous influence. 
Worthy work well done is always dignified, and the worker dignifies 
it. The child must be shown how to do the work well, arouse his Hbor 
saving intelligence, and open his mind to the forces of the elements that 
are serving his intelligent activity, and he will never question the dignity 
of labor, that arouses intelligence, and that fills him with pride over the 
product. 
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