Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1924-05-30
Sprinstime Gardening.

1.-THE child's First School is the Fam
ily."
''See what wonderful garden is here,
Planted and trimmed for my Little
Old-Dear;
Posies so gaudy and grass of such
brown,
Search We the country and hunt ye the
town,
And never yen meet with a garden SO
queer
As this one I've made for my Little
Old-Dear."
Training that associates itself natur-
ally with the season of the year is par
ticnlarly apt to make its impression on
the child. The child is sensitive TO the
natural changes in the world about
him and there is value in any "lesson''
that can be correlated with the lively
interest he takes in the weather, the
sky, and the plants.
In the spring, for instance, the child
loves to play in the little rivulets that
form from the melting SHOWS and rain.
He bridges them; the dashing torrents
he dams to turn his little water wheels;
on the quiet ones he floats his paper
boats. He is conscious of the special
tang he feels in playing in this mud
and water. He is unable to know it is
the ''liveness" of waking nature APP
pealing to him, but he senses the mes
sage and responds.
The mother, too, II she be a lover OF
nature, thrills to the same message
brought by other couriers. How much
more the child's half-conScious love
will mean 10 him II she realizes that
he shares her own appreciation and If
she takes care to foster it until il be-
comes actual knowledge OF nature.
One mother OF my acquaintance re-
allied the value OF such timely train
ing. She purchased for her little
daughter book that told the story of
the bean. It told of its DEVELOPMENT
from an Insignificant pebble-like thing
into lovely tall vine with flowers
which, in turn, produse the bean that
people use for food.
The lima bean was pictured as a
baby that grew and grew. The child
was interested, so the mother got some
lima beans, quite while before it was
time to plant them outdoors, and put
them between roll of good blotting
paper, inserted in drinking glass. A
small amount of water was poured In.
TO the glass which was then put on the
window sill in the sun.
As the days went by the child could
observe the tiny shoots coming from
the seeds. First came the root. then
the leaf shoots which unfolded and
grew larger and larger and the shoot
grew stronger and stronger until 1t
overtopped the glass.
IL was then time to put 1t in the
ground. The mother showed the little
girl how to plant 1t and together they
planted other beans to grow as the
first had done.
All the while these seeds were devel-
oping under ground the child knew
what was happening and eagerly waited
for the first tiny leaves to appear above
the surface. She cared for the garden
herself, watering it faithfully. Later
In the summer she was rewarded with
very small crop OF beans, for this
was but small garden in yard at
the back of city house. But how
mseh she had learned. and what a ioy
ID had been
The first requisite towards making
children good citizens is TO make them |
good men and women. The school !
should do some definite work to this 1
end, recognizing that in the words of
Mahatma Gandhi, the great Hindo
teacher, the first object Of education
should be the information OF charac-
ter. y
ELvA S. BoHANNAN,
Co. Home Dem. Agent