Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/467

Rh but in a secondary place. It was claimed with truth that teachers who have beautiful flowers on their desks, and fine bits of color on the walls of their rooms, were likely to have other matters in harmony, order, neatness, quietness, and an atmosphere conducive to study. The flowers seem to set the key, and other matters are tuned up to that pitch. Pupils appreciate the conditions and the teacher. Unscholarly conduct is felt to be a discordant note, and the sentiment of the class is against it. However, the committee



had other and perhaps higher aims to accomplish. They wished pupils to take a positive, conscious part in the development of plant life.

In accordance with the conditions mentioned, the committee decided to start a garden where the circumstances seemed most favorable, and appropriated ten dollars for the purpose. A piece of ground forty-eight by seventy-two feet in the back of the boys' yard of the George Putnam Grammar School was found the most available, and a few teachers in the school offered all the assistance in their power to carry out the purposes of the committee.

The soil was such as one might expect to find where no thought of plants or plant materials for a moment entered the minds of those