Oklahoma Arbor and Bird Day, Friday, March Twelfth, 1909/Part One: Arbor Day/Gardens for School Children

GARDENS FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN.

Much has been said and written during the past five or six years on the subject of school gardens, and many efforts have been made by teachers and pupils to carry out the suggestions of these speakers and writers. In the majority of cases these efforts have not been crowned with the success that the enthusiastic teacher and her equally enthusiastic pupils had reason to expect. Why is this?

In the first place, few teachers and pupils should attempt to grow anything to maturity in school gardens. The reason for this is plain. The country schools close during the latter part of May and early June; the teacher goes to her home, and the little garden in which all have taken such pleasure and pride, lies neglected and forgotten, during the very weeks in which it needs the most attention and care. In a few days, at this rapidly growing season of the year, the weeds have overrun the garden and a little later have completely starved out the plants. The garden, once a pleasant sight to look upon, becomes an offense to the eye and an object of derision to the passerby, perhaps to the children themselves. What, then, is the use of a school garden?

The school garden's sole and only use is that of an experimental plot with which to teach the conditions influencing the growth of plants and in which to interest children in the study of plant life. Here the soil may be properly fertilized, carefully prepared, thoroughly pulverized, and the seed-bad made by the children themselves under the guidance of the teacher. In this plot the seeds may be placed at the proper distance apart, covered to the right depth, and their germination and growth watched and carefully studied from day to day.

Each pupil may keep a note book in which he records the date of planting, the date when the first plants appear, the progress of their growth, and the time of the successive cultivations. He may also keep a record of all of weather conditions from the date of planting, noting the morning, noon, and evening temperature, if a thermometer is at hand, and whether the day is clear, cloudy, or rainy. In this note book he may keep a record of all of his work in this garden.

To each pupil may be assigned a particular portion and several pupils may be encouraged to cultivate the same kind of plants and vie with each other in trying to force them to make the most rapid growth. The teacher may encourage this competition and assist the less successful to find the cause of their failures.

This garden should not be large, its size depending upon the number of pupils in the school. In no case should any pupil have more space allotted to him than he can easily care for in the best possible manner.

When school is about to close, all plants should be pulled up and the plot sown to clover and oats or some other quick-growing crop, to keep it free from weeds and that it may be in good condition for the next year's garden. In no case should it be left to grow up to weeds and become an eyesore and a discouragement to the pupils who planted it. Better not plant a garden at all.

In conjunction with this school garden, and of far greater importance, the pupil may be encouraged to grow plants to complete maturity in the garden at home. Here too, he may have a small plot, all his own, on which to exercise the same industry and care he has been taught to use at school. In this home garden he may profit by his school experience and by better planting, more thorough cultivation, careful thinning and the like, bring his plants to complete and more nearly perfect maturity.

Each county superintendent should see that there are prizes offered by the county fair authorities for grains, vegetables, and fruits grown by school children in their home gardens. When this is done and rightly done, parents will not complain that their children take no interest in gardening and teachers will not give voice to that wail now too often heard, "O, what can I do to interest my pupils in the study of agriculture!"—K. L. Hatch.

Other countries, and many of the states of our own country, are making a success in school gardens. Why not Oklahoma?

We must induct into our schools something that will have a tendency to interest our boys and girls in that great and good occupation which is the foundation of all industry,—farming.

There is generally a lack of interest, on the part of our boys and girls, in the things of the farm, that the parent orders the boy or girl to plant certain things under certain conditions without explaining the whys and wherefores. The child simply goes about the task in a mechanical way without concern as to the manner in which he performs it. If the parent would take the time to explain why it should be done thus and so, and at that particular time, the child would become interested and takes pains to do the work in the best manner possible, looking forward to results instead of trying to get the piece of work done as soon as possible.

The school garden is the first principle of the great study of agriculture, and there should be a garden in connection with every school in the state. There is no reason why we should not have them if we will put into practice what knowledge we are now in possession of along this line. One writer has aptly said, "Enough spasmodic theorization on teaching practical agriculture and aesthetic Nature Study has been expended to pay off the national debt. Let us pass into the next stage of the argument and get down to the ways and means."

The importance of the school garden is just beginning to be appreciated in this State, but I am sorry to see that many of our teachers still regard it as an experiment of doubtful proprietary. The State normal schools and the Logan County High School have had school gardens for the past two years, and the results have been gratifying in the extreme. However, it still remains for an organized movement to be undertaken along this line by all our public schools. A recent writer struck the keynote when he said "Something more than mere talk is needed if our school grounds are to be made beautiful, and if our children are to have elementary instruction in agriculture. Unless something is done, the grounds will continue to be desolate. The study of agriculture in the country schools must lead the children to investigate for themselves with reference to soil and plant life. Hence the beginnings of the school garden movement in the country school, though crude and unscientific to the expert, are to be commended, for they are a long advance over the do-nothing policy which has prevailed long enough. Let us have the courage to be pioneers in a movement that is right in itself, though we may not be able to see very far ahead. Manual training was held up to derision and laughed to scorn by those who were supposed, by themselves at least, to know all worth knowing in the theory and practice of education. Manual training flourished, however, and the school garden has at least a fighting chance. To contemplate with difficulties in country-school gardening is to do nothing, and while the average country school teacher is not as well trained, perhaps, as she should be, still this does not prevent her form learning something about school gardening and beginning to work in a limited way."