for games, and for characteristic trees, flowering shrubs and plants, and clinging vines as an integral part of the playgrounds. With the school garden added, the out-of-door conditions will be ideal.

"But the cost!" is the cry of the taxpayer; and the politician takes up the cry to further his selfish aims. In some cases it costs more not to spend money than to spend it, and this is one of the cases.

We read that the first motive for the establishment of "common schools" in America was that the children might learn to read the Bible, and from our records of Puritan character in Massachusetts we may safely assume this to be correct. Recently Bishop John Spaulding gave utterance to these words: "In the midst of all this noise and rush of business, of expansion and success, we are rapidly growing incapable of taking or loving the deeper views of life. Our faith in education is, at the bottom, the faith in its power to enable us to get more money." I think the truth of this statement will hardly be questioned. Have not we Americans reached a point in our tremendous development of wealth where we may pause to consider the children?

Our schools cost enormously, to be sure, but scarcely more than our penal and reformatory institutions, taken in their entirety; and we may well turn some of the millions poured out for the latter purpose into attempts for prevention.

"Can't afford it!" is a stock cry that may well be analyzed and carefully considered. During the past thirty years Republican Philadelphia and Democratic New York have squandered money enough on political parasites to furnish ample playgrounds and gardens for every public school in either city. Cities that can afford Tweeds, Crokers, and Quays need scarcely talk about the expense of schools. In the same manner, tho not to the same extent, more than half of the great cities of this country are luxuriating in corrupt political bosses. One party is as deep in this robbery of the taxes as the other.

"Can't afford it?" A few years ago Chicago spent twenty millions on a world's fair, and nobody regrets the vision of exquisite beauty then created. At the same time there is not a beautiful school yard in the city, and many magnificent school buildings have no playgrounds at all. Now St. Louis is indulging the same luxury, to say nothing of past enterprises of Buffalo, Atlanta, and Charleston, and the same public-school yard conditions may be pointed out in these cities as in Chicago.

The question of expense is secondary, the first and dominant question being, "What do the children need?" Education into good citizenship with high ideals will be genuine economy, no matter what the cost.

In connection with one of the vacation schools in Chicago last summer a garden was established on an adjoining lot. The preparation and planting were by the children of the public school before vacation; the cultivation, by the charity vacation school; and the harvest gathered after

vacation, all or mostly by the same children. Each pupil had his individual garden, and each took to his home the product of his labor, thus becoming a responsible factor in the home institution.

The children worked persistently and enthusiastically, many making application where one could be admitted. Mr. Frank Darling, the superintendent, told me that in point of genuine educational value, viewing character as the product, this garden experience was the greatest he had ever known.

Bloomington, Ill., a city of 25,000, has during the past two years experienced a genuine educational inspiration. His name is J. K. Stableton, one of those schoolmasters whom God occasionally sends into the work to make us wonder why he does not send more. Mr. Stableton determined that the unsightly school grounds of Bloomington should be beautified with flower gardens thru the work of the school children, and that the influence of the school planting should extend to the homes of the pupils to make them more beautiful along with the schools. The account of the first year's work reads like a fairy-story. Wiseacres said: "You can't do it! The children will destroy your flower beds, and the boys will steal your plants." And the children and the boys did nothing of the kind. The cussedness and total depravity of the children exist mainly in the imagination of the elect. Give the children a chance, and we shall know more about them. They were enthusiastic in making the ugliest spots in the yards the most attractive; and they did it. Volunteers cared for the plants during the summer vacation. Hundreds of home gardens were planted, and in September a flower show from school and home plants brought together thousands of delighted parents and patrons, whose views of the mission of the public schools underwent a mighty change. Space forbids any detailing of the process, and it is not necessary. A consecrated man, a devoted band of teachers, and willing children can solve any problem.

What results? All of the school work felt the impulse; discipline took care of itself; the lessons were illuminated; the loveliness of childnature grew with the growing plants and blossomed with the flowers; and the sum-total of happiness of children, teachers, and parents was vastly increased. This work was accomplished in one year, and is possible in any village or small city in the country even under present conditions. Mr. Stableton wrote me recently: "I did not at first know just how, but I knew that we should do it." That tells the whole story.

This enterprise was from the school seeking the co-operation of the people. Cleveland has had a similar experience, but from the people seeking the co-operation of the schools. Overtures were heartily met by Superintendent Jones and the teachers, and the "Home Gardening Association of Cleveland Public Schools" was the result. A study of flowering plants was made, and seeds procured and put up in packages, which were

This

sold to the school children at one cent each for home planting. covered the entire expense, including printed directions for planting and cultivation. The first year (1900) nearly 49,000 packages were sold and planted. The second year nearly 122,000 packages, or 4581⁄2 pounds, were sold, besides several thousand bulbs. Three annual reports have been issued, and they are very interesting reading. To speak of the effect on schools and homes would but repeat the experiences of Bloomington.

The Outlook for May 2, 1903, contains a fascinating article entitled "The First Children's School Farm in New York City." I imagine there could be few more hopeless undertakings than this garden, begun late in the season of 1902, on a patch of land only one-fourth of an acre, hitherto used as a dumping-ground for rubbish, in one of the most congested districts of New York. But it was a triumphant success. The land was cultivated by children in individual gardens three feet by six, and the effect of these gardens on a neighborhood where before only vandalism reigned is absolutely startling. I pray you find the article and read it.

"Afford it?" What sort of investment would be too large for such returns? A bonded debt upon every village and every city of this country, sufficiently large to provide a suitable yard with garden attached for every public school, would be an obligation that the next generation might well afford to meet and be thankful for.

And what of the country schools? From one end of our great country to the other the most unlovely, lonesome, forlorn, uncared-for, and God-forsaken premises to be found are the country schoolhouses and school yards; and this in the older as well as in the younger states. A country school can be identified as far as it can be seen by its ugliness.

The life of the farm in no way enters into the instruction of the school. We teach the country girls and boys about banking, brokerage, stocks and bonds, and the foreign exchange peculiar to schoolhouses. We teach obsolete compound numbers and compound proportion which never existed outside of a schoolhouse. Days and weeks of instruction are given to the greatest common divisor and to fourstory complex-fraction monstrosities; but never a word about the soil; the growth of crops, which make the farm life possible; or of trees, shrubs, and flowers, which may make the farm home so beautiful. The country school has undoubtedly been a considerable factor in the mighty exodus from the farms to the villages and cities. It is time that a halt and an about-face be called in the great procession. The possibilities of comfort, freedom, and health; of competence and happiness; of the dignity and beauty of labor as connected with farm life-should be exploited in the country schools. Fill the curriculum with material having to do with country life and give the business processes of city and village a rest. They need it, and so do the children.

The rural delivery of mail, the daily paper, and the telephone will lend their aid in making the isolation of the farmer's home less acute. The school and the home must come into close sympathy thru what is taught in the school, and the knowledge of the teacher as to the farm and its interests.

These must be brought close to the school thru the planning and planting of the school ground, which shall have ample space for playgrounds and a garden. The average price of land surrounding country schools does not exceed fifty dollars per acre. The very minimum yard should contain an acre. There are several in Cook county, each containing ten square rods or less. I know of many quarter-acre school yards laid out when land was at government price-314 cents for a school yard for a hundred years or even longer.

In a way country children are familiar with growing plants, but rarely are the plants of interest to them as matter for study, either as to their wonderful growth or their beauty. They are taken as a matter of course in the getting of the farm living; and it comes to pass that hill, vale, and prairie, with their abundance of trees, shrubs, clambering vines, flowering plants, and grasses, make little impress upon the characters of the children. Hence the wealth of natural beauty in the farm surroundings is rarely counted as an asset of the farm life.

Here is the opportunity for the country school. The school yard should be an object-lesson in attractiveness to all dwellers of the district, because it is more beautiful than any other yard. Its trees should be the handsomest, its trailing vines the most tasteful, its shrubs the most thrifty, and its flowers the most beautiful. The taste and appreciation of the children should be as vitally the care of the teacher as is their learning to spell or to add and subtract.

The sordid scramble after dollars, the long hours of monotonous toil, especially on the part of farmers' wives, have more than any other one cause furnished the inmates for insane hospitals; and the number and magnitude of these hospitals are frightful. What is needed in the farmers' homes is healthful mental stimulus; and this must be the outgrowth of the schools.

A schoolmaster in Sangamon county, Ill., had an idea, and it grew into a country school garden-the only one I know of in the state with its twelve thousand country schools. The school was closed from May 13 to September 1, which fact would seem to preclude success; but the idea of the schoolmaster meant business, and it succeeded. In all of the wonderfully fertile prairie of that portion of the great state, that little garden 38 by 40 feet is the most significant thing and promises to make Cottage Hill and Schoolmaster Pruitt famous. It has revolutionized the spirit of the school and the sentiment of the district. Suppose that twelve thousand Pruitts should bless the twelve thousand country

districts of Illinois for the next ten years. The results in scholarship, in manners and morals, in good health and good citizenship are almost beyond the power of imagination.

Who shall be equal to these things? The teachers of America, of course. What can be done in Sweden and Austria can be done in the United States. For the scholars, an admixture of Mother Earth, growing plants, fresh air, and blue sky, with their book lessons, will make healthier and happier children. For the teachers, a part of the lessons out of doors, the making of beautiful school yards and school gardens, the preparation in healthful study and planning necessary thereto, and less of school-room drudgery and examination papers on subjects often uninteresting either to pupil or teacher, will make healthier, happier, and more effective teachers.

SCHOOL GARDENS

HENRY LINCOLN CLAPP, PRINCIPAL

OF THE GEORGE PUTNAM SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASS.

I have noticed, during the last twenty years especially, that most city children have few responsibilities placed upon them, do exceedingly little manual labor, and get almost no physical exercise in that way. So physical exercises are required of them in the schoolroom. "Shoulder arms!" and "Hips firm!" are overworked commands. Here compulsion has the whole field; spontaneity nothing.

Several years ago, as I was thinking over the nature of physical exercises in the schoolroom, I thought of the possibilities of the garden in view of my own experience with it for more than half a century. I said to myself: Here is the thing for the children. Here is an opportunity for spontaneity, responsibility, and the exercise of every muscle in the body. that needs to be exercised. Here the children can dig in the earth, as nearly all children like to do; can study plant growth under the most favorable conditions; and can take vigorous physical exercise without being conscious of it or being forced to it.

So three years ago a vegetable garden was established for the instruction and exercise of some of the children in the George Putnam School, Roxbury District, Boston. The lot used was four rods square. Formerly a man had used it for a garden; but, having lain fallow for a number of years, it was overgrown with stout turf when the thought of converting it into a school garden occurred. A friend plowed it free of charge, and the children of the seventh grade, averaging about thirteen years of age, did the remainder of the work. The surface after the plowing was very rough. Elevations and depressions were to be brought to a common level. There were sods to turn under; grass roots to bury beyond the prospect of