Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1907-04-26
School Gardens.

lf there are any two places outside
of home that should be pleasant tC
look upon these two places are surely
God S acre, or where the farmer Durie<
his loved ones, and the country SChOo
where those who are to bear his name
and testify by their lives to his char
acter and virtue, are taught the first
rudiments of knowledge.
! Strange as it may seem in the
prairie country the school house is
about the loneliest and most desolate
and forsaken spot in the whole lands
scape. The blizEardS howl around il
in winterand the sun beats down upon
it in summer. when a school book il
the hands of the child becomes bur.
den, and there is no cooling shade, nc
place where birds sing and build theil
| nests and rear their young. This
ought not so To be.
How can we work a reform in the
way of beautifying and ornamenting
the school house and grounds? We
have no plans to suggest other than
that there be shade trees, shrubs,
flower gardens, and a wealth of such
annual plants as will enable the teach.
er to teach her pupils the very first
lessons in agriculture: How things
start to grow and how they continue
to grow. These plans can be best
worked out by the county superintend-
ent or school officials together with
the teacher and pupils.
Our object in this article is simply
to point out how for the prairie states
are behind other countries that are
rated much lower in point of intelli-
gence. For these facts we areindebted
to an article by Miss Carrie Harrison,
quoting statistics from DR.. Orville IT..
Bright, and published in the Fayette
County Iowa) Gazette:
From the middle of the sixteenth
century the Italian universities had
botanical gardens, and most Italian
cities had gardens. The Italian gov
ernment requires by law the estab-
liShment of gardens in connection with
the elementary schools.
For the last forty years the Austrian
government has prescribed that when
practical garden and place for agri-
cultural experiments should be eStab-
liShed with every rural school. Now
Austria II ungary has nearly twenty
thousand school gardens, Bohemia has
fOrty-tive hundred and the enormous
fruit crop of that country is by many
attributed to the instruction received
in the country schools.
For over thirty years Sweden has
required school gardens and they now
number five Thousand. For thirty-fOur
years the school law requires that
every school shall have garden of at
least One-fOurth Of an acre. and the
teachers are required to give theoret-
ical and practical instruction in bot
any, horticulture, and agriculture.
Most of the cantons OF Switzerland
have established school gardens, with
great benefit to the development OF
that beautiful little country. France
has one hundred schools for the higher
teaching of agriculture, and they are
among the finest in the world. She
has nearly thirty thousand elementary
school gardens and no school can re-
ceive public funds without such de-
velopment.
Even in one province in benighted
Russia 257 out of 504 schools have
gardens aggregating 300 acres. These
gardens contain 200 fruit trees,
100000 forest trees, and more than
1000 bee hives 1t is needless to say
that Germany has school gardens by
the thousands.
We ask our readers to note this, SO
that our school houses and grounds
shall no longer be desolate, uncared
for and forsaken in appearance, a dis
grace to the farmers OF the county,
WalIaces' Farmer.