Nearly all the garden products may be correlated with the classroom work. The kindergarten children use peas in construction. The peas raised in the garden may be applied here. The first-grade children use lentils in construction. Why not as well use pumpkin seed and grains of corn—the product of the garden? Every class enjoys having a Jack-o'-lantern at Hallowe'en, so here again the pumpkin from the garden comes into play. In the construction of miniature wagons and wheelbarrows of paper, peas may be soaked and used as axles for the wheels. Both peas and beans may be soaked and given to the small children to string for chains, thus teaching number and spacing. Every layer of husk (beneath the outside one) from the ear of corn may be dried and made into a basket by the more advanced pupil.
If a city teacher, with opportunities so limited and numberless disadvantages, can accomplish even a little in this line for the children in her charge, how much more should the teacher of the rural school accomplish when she has space at her command, children in the environment of country life, and seemingly all things that tend to work together to produce good results!
So much interest is shown in this phase of industrial work all over the country that I doubt that there is anywhere a teacher who does not wish to add the study of it to the curriculum, unless she is already working along these lines. Feeling sure of the sympathy aroused in every teacher's heart, I have included among the illustrations of this article three scenes from rural school life. (See pages [113], [115], and [117].)
In connection with these pictures let me say a few more words to the rural teacher. You may think yourself much poorer than your city co-worker, but the fact is that you are the one of affluence, she is the struggler. You have all about you the materials that a city teacher can secure only at second hand. All the riches of nature are at your command—the birds that nest at your door, the fishes that swim in the brook, the grasses that grow by the roadside, the trees of the forest, and the flowers that spring up everywhere; the ground space for your garden; the intelligent child of country environment who does not need to work the garden to learn how vegetables grow, but who does need to work it for the education, the aim and object of school gardens. If you are not interested in such work, try doing it once because you should. Next year there will be no should; love will lead you on.
I have the same feeling in my heart about the school garden that the poet who wrote "The Little Fir Trees" must have had about them. Each stanza winds up with
And so,
Little evergreens, grow!
Grow, grow!
Grow, little evergreens, grow!
I would say:
And so,
Grow, school gardens, grow!
Grow, grow!
Grow, school gardens, grow!
The three pictures, "Studying Nature," "A Flower from the Country" and "A Suggestion for Recess Hour," came to me from a country school. They speak so vividly for themselves that I feel that each one carries with it its own message and appeals so strongly in behalf of the deepest love of nature in even the youngest child as to point to the possibilities of what might be when this love is fed and made to grow with the physical nature of the child.