Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-02-26

| the labor Of the children every school in
| the District Of Columbia, except three
that had no land made an attempt to
beautify it's grounds.
School Gardens.
THE most difficult part of the task has
been to replace tie poor soil. Vacant
lots. stables and the woods have been
drawn upon. One school provided its own
fence, which was made Of 1877 broom
sticks collected in the noon hour by the
children. who sawed them the same
length, fastened them together by wire
and painted them neatly. The children
have furnished the bulk of the materials
used in their gardens. Last fall they
planted 1880 bulbs around the school
houses in this city. which they bought for
j cent each. The principal of the Ben
ming school in her report says: "A great
change has been wrought in the appear
ance of the home yard, due. l know. to
the ideas received at the school. The first
year vandalism was rampant in our school
yard. but 1t would be SLY thief who
could pick a flower now, for every neigh
Dor and every child is a self-appointed
guard. I believe the gardens have been
great power for good
These school yard gardens are small
usually only narrow border around the
yard-but they arouse civic interest in the
children, and in their parents also: they
furnish material for practical lessons in
arithmetic, geography and nature study.
The school garden is natures laboratory
for the city school. Its best result. how
ever, is in exciting an interest among
the children to start and maintain gar
dens at their homes, and to encoura ge this
they have been taught to use their PEN
MES to buy something which may be their
very own. The seeds and plants are not
given away, but are sold to them for l
cent package. The result is that 16O.-
QUO packages of seeds were bought by
school children and planted around the
homes of Washington last spring.
Some of the children have made their
little gardens sources of revenue: one
girl at the Gage school sold 81
cents worth of parsnips from the invest
ment of 1 cent. A sixth-grade boy in
Takema Park sold IS worth of vegetables
from his garden. and a first-grade boy
made a profit of s1.25. In all. AS chill
dren wers enrolled in the summer garden
classes. The most interesting one of this
kind was cultivated by a class of sixth
grade boys in the back yard of an ord
may city home in Southeast Washington.
They removed carloads of ashes and
brought in carloads of good soil and ma
all summer. and. according to their own
record sold $25.12 worth of vegetables.
AS usual in a new garden much of the
crop was stolen. so that sum does not
represent the full crop; but their expert
ence is ve-y suggestive to householders
in this and other cities.
influence of the Work.
THE influence of this work is being
felt throughout the country" continued
Miss Sipe Last year the congressional
seed distribution showed that every state
in the Union. except Wyoming and Idaho,
has school gardens. The bureau of plant
industry sends out special packages or
seeds to schools upon application through
members of the Senate and House of Rep
natives. The division of agricultural
education keeps the teachers of the coun-
try informed of the most successful
methods used, and furnishes copies or re-
por6 from the experimental stations ana
other publications that are especially
helpful to teachers. The bureau of edu-
cation has recently published a bulletin
upon school gardens by James Ralph
Jewell. which is full of interesting and
important information on this subject,
and tells what is being done in Chicago,
ST. Louis, Cleveland and other cities of
the country by the teachers of the public
schools. 1t contains. also. valuable chap
ter on elementary agricultural education,
which every teacher can read with profit.
This bulletin can be obtained by applica-
ton to the bureau of education in Wash
ington.
"A multiplicity of diversions and
attractions in a city tend to draw the
child away from it's home. The garden
tends to bind him closer to it. The gar
den furnishes the strongest tie between
home and school that any school scheme
has yet developed According to the re-
ports of the principals of the Washington
schools last fall. 60 per cent of the chill
dren kept up their interest in their gar
dens during the summer vacation.
Birth of the idea.
where did the idea of school gardens
begin?'
1.-The idea of the home garden through
the schools was first adopted in Cleve-
land l think, replied Miss Sipe. AL
though as long ago as 1851 George Fox,
an old Quaker, left a tract of land near
Philadelphia for a playground for the
children of the town to play on. and for
garden to plant with physical plants. for
lads and lasses to know simples and to
learn how to make oils and ointments.'
Two hundred years later the first school
garden in America was established on the
grounds of the George Putnam School of
Roxbury. Mass, by Henry Lincoln Clapp,
it's master Our work in Washington has
been initiated in the Whitechapel district
of London upon the recommendation of q
member of the London board of educa-
ton. He visited a flower show held by
the school children Of Washington. and
was so much impressed with the value of
the plan that at his suggestion the Lon
don teachers organized home garden
movement"