SCHOOL GARDENS.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 270, 20 May 1907, Page 4

SCHOOL GARDENS.

One of the most gratifying of the new educational features introduced in the schools of the Wanganui Education district recently has been the success of the school gardens, not only in the laying out of the gardens themselves, or even the produce obtained from them, but in the knowledge the pupils gain from the results of the experiments made in the gardens. The Board has been fortunate in securing the services of such an enthusiast as Mr Grant as agricultural instructor, for he possesses the rare combinations of tact, energy and ability, with a knowledge of the best way of going about the work he has set himself to accomplish. The teachers truly find in him a willing counsellor and a comrade capable of drawing out the best that is in them, with a proportionate good result on the pupils. A chat with Mr Grant on his work is very interesting, and shows what a great deal of good work is done with very little material. The minimum of expense and the maximum of result seem to be his motto, and ho acts fully up to it. As an instance of what can be done he instances Mr Brennand, the teacher at Brownlie, who has a piece of swamp at his school which he intends to turn into a school garden. He has drained it to a depth of four feet, cut trenches in several directions, and seems to be in a fair way of accomplishing his heart's desire — having a school garden ready this year. Kimbolton is another place where great work has been accomplished, the area of the garden having first to be stumped and cleared before it could be used, as was also the case at Ruahine. The Kimbolton garden, as we have previously pointed out, is a splendid experimental garden, the different varieties of grasses, potatoes, etc., grown under different conditions, being an excellent object-lesson to the pupils. Glen-Oroua, Taikorea and Rongotea were the last places visited by Mr Grant, and he has great hopes of them all. At Taikorea Mrs Howie has done a great deal under adverse circumstances, and the ensuing season promises well. At the new school at Glen-Oroua, the ground is rather wet, but a neighbour has offered to do the necessary drainage, and the headteacher, Mrs Williams, is anxious to get the garden in trim. liongotea has not yet made a start, and although the ground is available, Mr Grant wants it turned over first before operations are started by the children. With that object in view he intends to deliver a lecture in the township shortly to obtain the necessary funds, and we have no doubt the result will prove satisfactory. Mr Grant says one of the most gratifying features of this branch of educational work is the intelligent interest taken in native study by tiny little tots of seven or eight years of age, and it seems a pity that the Department does not assist infant classes as well as those in the older standards. The other day a child at one of the schools* in the first standard told Mr Grant that she hud found a chrysalis. Astonished at the big word from such little lij-s, she was questioned about her knowledge, and proved that she understo >d the formation of a chrysalis, and the stages through which it passed to the emerging of the moth. The little one said that she had put the chrysalis in a box, covered over with paper, but the moth had escaped from a hole in the paper }>ml had left the empty shell. Another infant pupil was able to name all the plants and flowers in the school garden, except some, she said, that never had flowers on — only leaves. The subject is one of absorbing interest to those who are interested in the culture of children's minds, and it is quite an education to listen to Mr Grant's enthusiastic references to the work he loves so well, and of which he has proved such a capable exponent.