Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature StudyOntario. Department of Education
Science
Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study
Ontario. Department of Education
Nature study; Science -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- Ontario
In the study of garden plants there is added a certain new interest
arising out of experimentation, cultivation, and ownership. The love of
the gardener has in it elements that the love of the naturalist does not
usually possess--a sort of paternal love and care for the plants
produced in his garden; but every gardener should be a naturalist as
well. Most people have a higher appreciation for that which they own and
which they have produced or acquired at some expense or personal
sacrifice; therefore it is that the growing of plants in home and school
gardens or in pots and window boxes is so strongly advocated throughout
this Course. Ownership always implies responsibility, which is at once
the chief safeguard of society and the foundation of citizenship. A
careless boy will never respect the property of others so much as when
he himself has proprietary interests involved. We believe, therefore,
that every teacher should encourage his pupils to cultivate plants and,
if possible, to own a plot of ground however small.
The teacher should not merely aim at _making_ a garden in the school
grounds. The great question is rather how best to use a school garden in
connection with the training of boys and girls. To learn to do garden
work well is indeed worth while and provides a highly beneficial kind of
manual training. To understand something of soils and methods of
cultivation, of fertilizers and drainage, the best kinds of flowers,
vegetables, fruits, and farm crops, and how to grow them successfully,
is very important in such a great agricultural country as this; but the
greatest of all results which we may hope to realize in connection with
school gardening is the ennobling of life and character. The pupils are
taught to observe the growing plants with great care, noting
developments day by day. This adds to their appreciation of the beauties
and adaptations found among plants on every side, and cannot fail to
produce good results in moral as well as in mental development. The
teachers must always remember that the gardeners with whom they are
working are more important than the gardens which they cultivate.
The best garden is not always the largest and most elaborate one. It is
rather the garden that both teacher and pupils have been most deeply
interested in. It is the garden in which they have experienced most
pleasure and profit that makes them want to have another better than the
last. No school is too small to have a garden of some kind, and no
garden is too small to become the joy and pride of some boy or girl.
SUGGESTIONS
For the benefit of teachers beginning their duties on the first of
September, in school sections where school gardening has never been
carried on, the following suggestions are offered:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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