oosing the most suitable positions for the house, where the teacher
must live, he says, to supply the atmosphere of a home; for animal
hutches, for sand-heaps and seesaws; for the necessary shelter, for the
children's gardens, and for the lawn, for even on his smallest plan, a
"twenty-five-foot lot," we find "room for a spot of green." Later he
explains that for this green one must use what will grow, and if grass
will not perhaps clover will. The way in which the trees and plants are
chosen is most suggestive. Beauty and suitability are always considered,
but he remembers his own youth, and also considers the special joys of
childhood. For it is not Nature lessons that come into his calculations
but "the mere association of plants and children." So the birch tree is
chosen, partly for its grace and beauty, but also because of its bark,
for one can scribble on its papery surface; the hazel, because children
delight in the catkins with their showers of golden dust, and the nut
"hidden in its cap of frills and tucks." And he adds: "How much more
alluring than the naked fruit from the grocer's sack are these nuts,
especially when dots for eyes and mouth are added, and a whole little
face is tucked within this natural bonnet."

[Footnote 22: G. Hansen, pub. Elder, Morgan & Shepherd, San Francisco,
1891.]

In addition to the flowers chosen for beauty of colour, this lover of
children and of gardens wants Canterbury Bells to ring, Forget-me-nots
because they can stand so much watering, and "flowers with faces,"
pansies, sweet-peas, lupins, snapdragons, monkey flowers, red and white
dead nettles, and red clover to bring the bees. Some of these are chosen
because the child can do something with them, can find their own uses
for them, can play with them. And, speaking generally, playing with them
is the child's way of appreciating both plant and animal. Picking
feathery grasses, red-tipped daisies, sweet-smelling clover and golden
dandelions; feeding snapdragons with fallen petals, finding what's
o'clock by blowing dandelion fruits, paying for dock tea out of a fairy
purse, shading poppy dolls with woodruff parasols, that is how a child
enjoys the beauty of colour, scent and form. He gets not more but less
beauty when he must sit in a class and answer formal questions. "Must we
talk about them before we take the flowers home?" asked a child one day;
"they are so pretty." Clearly, the "talk" was going to lessen, not to
deepen th