SCHOOL GARDENING

The War has stimulated the demand of educators for more of practical work, both in the schoolroom and out of doors. Perhaps in the past the school garden, except in a few instances, has been more or less played with. It has come within the sphere of influence either of the botany mistress, or of the woman gardener, neither of whom has regarded it with enthusiasm. It has taken the various aspects of form gardens or of individually owned beds. Occasionally, with more ambition, it has been diverted to scientific uses under the name of botanical beds. But, except in a few instances, it can hardly be said either that school gardens, as such, excited very great interest or that they were of very much value, and only here and there (with some notable exceptions) did such a subject as agriculture on really scientific lines hold a place in the school curriculum.

This last year has seen a change. All over the country many schools have seized the opportunity, not only to do good work in the actual cultivation of ground hitherto neglected, but also to impart new ideas and valuable training to the pupils who work with enthusiasm on the land, where they are gaining real knowledge and experience of conditions affecting our daily life and welfare. It is astonishing how ignorant many of us are of these conditions. We hear of one school that has undertaken to cultivate ground lying idle in its immediate neighbourhood. A second has renounced its flower beds, and the pupils have planted and grown vegetables. Yet another, with a large additional piece of unused ground attached to it, gave it over to voluntary workers. The result showed large sections of cleared ground producing good crops of cabbages, beans, peas, and salad plants. A school, not very far from London, with extensive grounds, has lately added gardening to its school time-table. The school girls are keeping the kitchen garden in working order, and aim at supplying the school with its produce. By actual experience they are learning some of the facts and methods necessary for successful cultivation of the soil. In many directions there are indications of similar tendencies. There is much that can be done by an earnest and enthusiastic body of pupils, who feel that they are doing their bit to help the nation out of a tight place. There are few of the homes of the middle-class pupils attending the ordinary secondary public day school where the cost and production of food are not fully realized.

Even country girls used to gardens or to farms often have to be taught the way to handle tools. Preliminary lessons might well start with the use and method of using each of these. The correct way of digging, the use of hoeing, the preparation of seedbeds, the drawing of straight drills for the

sowing of seeds, thinning and transplanting, each are dealt with in their turn. In a short time there is a body of girls who know what to do, and can take the more responsible work, leaving the easier or simpler things to those just beginning or lower down in the school.

Such gardening may very well be worked in connection with the botany, of which it may be regarded as the practical complement. It will furnish useful material for both discussion and illustration. In one school in which systematic work of this kind is now carried out, the gardening is worked in this way. The actual work is done by the four upper forms. The period of work is the long time always allowed for lessons in the laboratory. The number The number of girls employed at any one time varies from twelve to twenty. As the garden is large and the work varied, they are distributed to the various portions where work is waiting for their attention. Generally, but not always, they work in small groups or in pairs. Two of them each time are responsible for the distribution and collection of tools, which must be returned clean. Before the gardening period each girl is told exactly what her share of the work is and where it is, so that at the indicated time each one knows what to do, what tools she requires, and goes straight to her place or group. She is also requested to wear a serviceable overall and boots, and gloves are suggested, and generally adopted when useful. The work carried out by the forms during the autumn term included weeding, hoeing, planting spring cabbages, clipping borders, and clearing beds and paths. They also lifted carrots, beetroots, and onions which they had tended during the summer. Flower beds were tidied, bulbs planted, and early spring annuals got ready. Dead leaves were heaped up to form a future supply of leaf mould, and new ground was dug up in preparation for the spring. Work left for the beginning of the new term in the winter months includes the care of the rhubarb plants, some instruction in pruning (some neglected fruit trees affording exceptional opportunities); also trimming and cutting the black and red currants and the gooseberry bushes, and preparing the raspberry canes for next summer's fruit. Later on in the term early peas will be sown, as well as annuals and biennials for the flower garden.

The work is so arranged that no girl is taxed beyond her strength. In heavy digging, small gangs relieve each other in regular rotation, and in any other work that happens to be of a close or exacting nature. If the period of work extends through a whole afternoon, a short break takes place in the middle, which gives the gardeners an opportunity of rest and conversation, and of seeing each other's work. The question of keeping order does not exist.

It is enough that each girl knows what she has to do, and that the mistress who acts as head gardener goes from one to the other to help or suggest. Usually the work done and difficulties encountered form the text for a short talk at the next lesson. The reasons are given for the things done, and the work revised in the light of the botany lesson. As far as possible, it is incorporated into the class work, and has a distinct bearing upon it. Thus, the varying nature of soils, their powers of absorption and capacity for retaining water, are treated in class. Other subjects which arise, and form useful lessons, are the advantages and disadvantages of watering plants; the exhaustion of the soil, and the consequent need of fertilizers; the meaning of the rotation of crops. These are all on the agricultural side; on that of morphology and classification the garden forms a most useful observation ground.

It is thus seen that the gardening classes not only do useful manual work; they are also made to serve the school study. Over and above this is the consciousness that they are doing work for which there is a call, and in their particular case work which would not be done at all unless the school had taken in hand the carrying on of the gardener's work. The pupils are keen. They work well, and at the same time acquire some knowledge that it is useful for all to possess of this great branch of agriculture, and its enormous importance at this moment. For the first time they realize that we might become what we once were an agricultural country, containing in no small quantity some of the best soil in the world.

The Royal Agricultural Society, in addition to its usual publications, has issued many special pamphlets devoted to the encouragement of agriculture under war conditions. These are of the greatest value, and full of practical help. They are freely supplied on application, and schools intending to take up gardening as a real and serious occupation should not fail to make good use of them.-E. C. Matthews in Journal of Education (London).

roots removed in transplanting. At least one-half and often three-fourths of the top should be removed. In transplanting geraniums, strawberries, cabbage or tomatoes, the leaves may be removed, and in shrubbery and trees some of the branches may be removed and the remaining ones trimmed back, leaving the branches properly spaced so as to form the main branches of the tree. In transplanting, the fine roots. are injured and the plant cannot absorb the water and "plant food" necessary, thus making it advisable to prune the top as directed. If one be careful in transplanting and only slightly injure the roots the top will not need much pruning. Trees, shrubs, etc., transported from a distance will always need considerable pruning.

subjects, which have within a generation, crowded their way into the school curriculum, have probably all come to stay. We shall not eliminate music, nor drawing, nor physical education; we certainly shall not cut out manual training and the household arts; we shall not abandon the teaching of morals and manners, nor of history and civics; nor shall we cease to give lessons in the care of the body and the preservation of health, whether it be the personal health or the health of the community. We shall not, either, cast out any of the old timehonored studies,-spelling, or grammar, or arithmetic, or geography. No one imagine that we shall omit writing. It is more likely that we shall include also typewriting, since it is a great adantage in this day and generation for everyone to be able to use a typewriter with reasonable

skill.

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It is probably true that we shall omit some portions of some of the subjects which we now attempt to teach in school. We may teach less formal grammar, though the amount of formal grammar taught in most schools is not injurious. We shall, no doubt, omit certain subjects in arithmetic, certain of the applications. of fundamental arithmetical processes, which are no longer in vogue among us,but beyond this elimination does not seem very likely to go.

It is reasonably certain that we are trying to teach too much in the time that is allotted to the school each day. Some consideration of the matter, moreover, will show us that we are not only trying to do too much in the allotted time, but we are trying to teach too many things that are too nearly alike-too nearly of the same kind and which require too nearly the same kind of effort and the same kind of labor on the part of the pupils.

As a result of this situation, they become fatigued; certain faculties and powers are overworked; the circulation, and respiration, the digestion become disturbed and unbalanced; it is not possible for the pupils to put forth their best effort, or to accomplish the best results. This is a situation. for which there seems a reasonably clear and certain remedy. The diner who sits at a bountifully laden table, and with only a limited time for his meal, fills his stomach with heavy foodmeat, and substantial vegetables and gravy, and bread, and pastry-is likely to arise from the table with a heavy feeling, and to find that for some time after this meal, he is not in good physical or mental condition. This is likely to be true, even if he has not taken more food than would be suitable for his nourishment. The way in which the food was taken and the lack of variety in it would be the predisposing causes to diminish his satisfaction. If the time allowed for the meal could be lengthened, if it could be lightened with cheerful talk, and made a pleasant occasion; if more of lighter foods and relishes and fresh fruits and vegetables could be presented to give variety to the otherwise monotonous meal, the health and the comfort of the diner

would be greatly promoted.

The school program needs a somewhat similar reconstruction. There needs to be more of variety and light and life and

cheerfulness brought into the schoolroom. More time needs to be given for the exercises of the day, so that the work need not be done in so much of a rush as is frequently necessary at present. Children need time to think, time to study, time for selfexpression in pleasurable ways; time is needed for physical exercise-to break the solid program of mental work by the relaxation of sports and games. More time is needed for music; more time is needed for the handwork, including drawing and designing of a sort to evoke the pupils' originality and self-expression. More time is needed for outdoor exercise, for some acquaintance with the soil, and with the way in which things are planted in it and grow from it.

It is quite possible that even some new subjects might appropriately be added to the program of school exercises, or at least that some greater development of certain departments of some of the subjects now taught in the schools might be profitable. An increased length of school day and a greater variety in the program of daily exercises would make this possible, as well as the other changes which have been suggested.

If such a program as has been sketched could be adopted, we should hear less about the grinding nature of school work; less, also, about the danger of overtaxing the children who attend. We should hear less

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