MAKING THEM USEFUL.
See in the papers that school-children at Whissendine and elsewhere are taught gardening. Excellent idea, this. Small Holdings for Small Boys! Decide to try it at my "Select Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen," as kitchen garden certainly does want attending to, and I can't afford a gardener. Tell the boys about it. They want to know if the hour a day which I purpose to devote to Agriculture is to take the place of Bradley's Latin Exercises. On hearing that it is, boys seem relieved, and Smith Junior pronounces the scheme a "jolly lark." I confess I am pleased to find this appreciation of my new arrangement on the part of the most troublesome urchin in the school.
Next Day.—All the boys are now provided with separate plots, spades, rakes, and hoes. Youth, in fact, is at the Plough, and Myself at the Helm, so we ought to get on all right. I purchase for them some young cabbage-plants and cucumber-seeds, which will go down as "extras" in the bills at the end of Term. Boys very active first day. Smith Junior breaks his spade, and gets fifty lines. Jones astonishes me by talking about "Three Acres and a Cow." Find that his father is a strong Radical. Must be careful what I say to Jones. The general opinion seems to be that Gardening is better than Bradley's Exercises "by long chalks." Encouraging.
Week Later.—In order to gain my prize for best cabbages, boys have been stimulating their growth with a guano made of chopped bones, slate-pencil dust, and ink! Surprisingly fine specimens in young Dodger's allotment. Too good to be true. Go out to inspect, take up one of his cabbages, and find it has no roots. Dodger admits that he bought them from village greengrocer. I remark humorously to boys—"This is Dodger's plot!" Boys cheer me, and, being indignant at Dodger's cheating, make him—so I hear afterwards—"run the gauntlet" in the dormitory the same evening. Hope it will do the little sneak good. Smith Junior tries to do circus trick on garden roller. Nearly killed. Two hundred lines, and a page of Bradley's Exercises. Hear him saying that "he wishes Old Swats (that's me) would do his gardening himself, and see how he likes it!" No, thanks.
End of the Experiment.—Kitchen garden a wreck! There has been a battle royal between Flashboyites and Smith Juniorites. Flashboy stole all the spades, and entrenched himself in an earthwork, which the other side stormed. Smith Junior bleeding but triumphant. Says "gardening is much better far than Bradley's Exercises." Cucumbers (bought as missiles) and potatoes lying all about. Several have got through school-room windows! Letters arrive from parents. Thought they would like the new agricultural departure as teaching their boys something really useful. But they don't. Quite indignant. Say their sons are "not intended for market-gardeners." Smith Junior's parent says his boy is "meant for the Church." Didn't know this before. Smith Junior will be an ornament of the Church Militant at any rate. Drop the gardening, and go back to Bradley.