who were instrumental in the establishment of the school and the preparation of the course of study.

The pupils brought in many wild plants, and the fleshy roots of biennials—turnips in variety, carrot, parsnip, radish, beet, onion (bulb), cabbage, etc. In planting, they took turns in digging the holes and placing the plants in position. Observations were made during the flowering season. The structure of the flowers of the cruciferous and umbelliferous plants was studied, and the nature of biennials was revealed. Other economic plants, such as the potato, the tomato, and the gourd, were raised to show the individualism of plants.

A square yard of ground was assigned to each of the ordinary grains-wheat, rye, oats, barley, and buckwheat. The first four, being most important members of the grass family, were especially interesting in their development. After that, grains meant more to the pupils.

Nineteen species of wild asters were planted in one row. Ten of the finest flowering kinds formed another row. Later it was discovered that those plants blossomed the most profusely which sprang from seeds scattered at random around trees and beside rocks and fences.

In the fall, seed vessels were collected for study in winter, and bulbs, corms, and tubers were stored away for spring planting.

Each member of the highest class had a particular plant to take care of and study. He dug around and watered it, took off all dead leaves and unseemly branches, and tied it up. Then he sketched its characteristic parts-flower, leaf, stem, habit of growth, etc.-and took such written notes as would enable him to write an account of his plant and illustrate it with appropriate drawings. On one occasion each of the thirty-two members of the class studied his own clump of asters, there being just clumps enough to go around. The importance of seeing and studying plants growing in large masses is not likely to be overestimated if interest and thoroughness in learning about them are desired. Comparatively, a single cut specimen in hand means but little.

By the aid of the boys a fernery was made in an angle of the school building on the north side, in a shady, sheltered position. They took handcarts into the woods half a mile distant and collected leaf-mold, which they mixed up thoroughly with loam and sand, and then assisted in taking the ferns from scattered places in the garden and locating them by genera in the fernery. The name of each species was written on a flat stick, which was stuck into the ground near the specimen to which the name belonged.

Seeing what one teacher had done, another, by means of a

hand camera, made a series of lantern slides, which proved to be of the greatest service for class instruction during the following winter. A solar camera and a twelve-foot screen completed the

A CORNER OF THE FERNERY. George Putnam School Garden.

equipment for the most interesting and profitable kind of instruction on the subject of ferns.

The pupils of one class studied fifteen species somewhat minutely by means of the slides and pressed specimens. Spores, sporangia, indusia, sori, pinnules, pinnæ, rachis, stipe, general shapes, textures, and relative position of parts were carefully observed, drawn, described, and colored. Notebooks contained characteristic parts of all the different species, which were broken up and distributed for the purpose. This study prepared the pupils to appreciate the development of fern crosiers in the fernery in the following spring. Twenty-two pupils out of the class of thirty-eight introduced ferns into their own gardens at home.

Other classes studied composite flowers, distribution of seeds, roots, corms, tubers, bulbs, and other material supplied by the garden.

In the spring of 1895 the development of fern crosiers was studied with great interest by the pupils. The collection of lantern slides soon included representations of the crosiers of the principal species in various stages of growth. In some respects the pictures

of the crosiers served a more useful purpose than the crosiers themselves, because their representations on the screen were very large, and could be seen very easily by the whole class at once.

At present there are more than one hundred and fifty different species of native wild plants in the garden. No attempt has been made to arrange them in ornamental beds, since they can not be studied so well in that arrangement. When over fifty pupils at a time are to study growing plants, such plants must be easily accessible, and therefore scattered as much as is consistent with other con

FOURTH-GRADE PUPILS OBSERVING. George Putnam School Garden.

ditions, especially that of caring for the plants and mowing the grass about them. Three or four times as many children can examine twenty plants set in rows as can examine them arranged in a bed; and the work of weeding the plants and cutting the grass in the former arrangement is not half as much as in the latter. The useful arrangement always takes precedence of the ornamental.

A great many insects have been observed upon the plantsbeetles, wasps, flies, moths, and butterflies. In the last class nine species have been seen: Pieris rapae, Colias philodice, Melitæa pharos, Cynthia Atalanta, Grapta interrogationis, Cynthia cardui, Danais Archippus, Papilio turnus, and Lycana americana. Soon

the garden will afford the pupils their only opportunities for studying, describing, drawing, and painting such insects.

How the garden is supported, and how the necessary work is done, are interesting questions to those who think of starting a garden. Since 1891 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society has offered every year a premium of fifteen dollars for the best school garden, in connection with the best use of it. This garden has competed with others, and won the premium every year. Five dollars pays for the annual enrichment of the soil, and ten dollars for the labor of the janitor, who, during the long summer vacation, weeds, hoes, and waters the plants, and cuts the grass periodically. In spring he wheels in and spreads fertilizing material, prepares new beds or rows, and resets old ones with plants changed from other localities. During the school season in spring and autumn teachers and pupils do considerable work in weeding and transplanting; the former being able to distinguish choice plants, however small, from weeds, which many a so-called good gardener is frequently unable to do.

Reasons that are good for introducing the elements of science into elementary schools are equally good for supplying adequate and seasonable elementary science material to work upon. Plants are so available for the purposes of instruction, their structure, uses, and functions are so varied and interesting, that it is generally conceded that the best elementary science material on the whole is found in the vegetable world.

The repulsion that is so often felt in studying animals or animal physiology is unknown in studying plants, and the cycle of plant life from seed to seed furnishes a lesson in biology that is unsurpassed in value. Moreover, living plants, out of doors, are necessarily connected with mineral forms—air, earth, and water—as well as with various forms of animal life-butterflies, moths, beetles, wasps, ants, grubs, and worms-all together furnishing constant illustrations of correlation under the best conditions.

The elements of zoology may be studied in the schoolroom with some profit by means of dried and alcoholic specimens, skeletons, diagrams, and books, but visible correlation will of necessity be wholly left out. The same may be said of mineralogy or mineral substances generally. But in the school garden the interdependence of animals, plants, and minerals is always obvious, and teachers and pupils can take advantage of it without taking time and money to go to the country for the purpose of seeing the three kingdoms of Nature properly related. Of course, the excursion is better in many respects, since many instructive things may be seen which are not possible for a school garden; but the excursion at best is seldom practicable. On the school premises, pupils are

much more amenable to control and instruction than on an excursion. Without the school garden the great masses of children in cities will never have their attention directed to the great lessons of Nature in any telling way. Some of them may visit the country, but very few will have efficient direction, and the results will be meager.

It is too much to expect that teachers, especially those in city schools, will unremittingly supply fresh material whenever needed for instruction in the elements of science. Even in the country the

CHILDREN WORKING IN GEORGE PUTNAM SCHOOL GARDEN.

most desirable plants are often far from the school. It would be a most extraordinary school district where fourteen golden-rods, eighteen wild asters, and twenty-nine ferns, all different kinds, might be found growing. Probably half of the plants that would flourish in a school garden could not be found in the district at all; or, if they could, they would be scattered and remote from the school, and whether they were in a proper state of development for study could not always be ascertained easily. The nearness of the school garden is one of its most valuable features.

A book might be written on the educational value of a school garden properly used; but mention of its main advantages must suffice. Besides the opportunity for correlation, previously mentioned, it gives the opportunity for bringing together a great number of plants to be classified and arranged in families, genera, and species.