THE SCHOOL GARDEN
Introductory Remarks
In the spring of 1906, at the request of President R. W. Silvester of the Maryland Agricultural College, I wrote, for publication as a College Bulletin, my experience of one year's work in a city school garden. The introduction of school gardens as a factor in the school curriculums was then in its infancy. Three years have shown great advancement along this line, though the main issue is the same to-day as it was then. This paper is a revised edition of the M. A. C. Bulletin. That President Silvester was a pioneer in the thought that "agriculture should enter into education" is shown by the following quotation from his introduction to my article of 1906:—
"The time must come when the child of rural environment must find in the only school which ninety per cent will ever attend, a training which will give it an intelligent adjustment to its environment. With this adjustment, the future work of the child cannot reasonably expect to escape the state of drudgery. When a life's work degenerates into this condition, then contentment with it, or happiness as a result of it, becomes an idle dream. Can the accuracy of this statement be questioned? If so, it would be a great privilege for the writer to receive from some teacher a letter setting forth the particulars in which he is wrong.
"Let all who are interested in the child from the country, and every one should be, take this as a motto in this great work before us: 'The country is entitled from its state and from its county, to that consideration which will give him every opportunity to secure an education as well suited to his conditions, as is enjoyed by his city brothers and sisters.'"
A CITY SCHOOL GARDEN
If a country boy were to hear his little city brother say, "Our class has a garden and I have a share in the working of it," the country chap would "non plus" him by quickly exclaiming, "What's that! I work in my father's garden every year and know all about raising and gathering vegetables."
But to the city child, who sees only cobblestones beneath his feet, whose view is contracted by rows of dingy houses, or who plays on a lot used both as a dump-pile and as a baseball ground, the privilege of working in a garden plat is a great one and the products of its soil a revelation.
