achers had, however, a vision which became a reality. She asked her
children to help to make a garden, and for weeks every child brought
from his back-yard his little paper bag of soil which was deposited over
some clinkers that were spread out in a narrow border against the
outside wall; in a few months there was a border of two yards in which
flowers were planted: the caretaker, inspired by the sight, did his
share of fixing a wooden strip as a kind of supporting border to the
whole: in two years the garden had spread all round the outside wall of
the playground, and belonged to several classes.

An even greater miracle was performed in a dock-side school, where to
most of the children a back-yard was a luxury beyond all possibility.
The school playground was very small, and evening classes made a school
garden quite impossible. But the head mistress was one who saw life full
of possibilities, and so she saw a garden even in the sordidness. Round
the parish church was a graveyard long disused, and near one of the
gates a small piece of ground that had never been used for any
graveyard purpose: it was near enough to the school to be possible, and
in a short time the miracle happened--the entrance to the graveyard
became a children's flowering garden.

Inside the school where plants and flowers in pots are numerous, a part
of the morning should be spent in the care of these: few people know how
to arrange flowers, and fewer how to feed and wash them; if there are an
aquarium or chrysalis boxes, they have to be attended to: all this
should be a regular duty with a strong sense of responsibility attached
to it; it is curious how many people are content to live in an
atmosphere of decaying matter.

If the children enjoy so intensely the colour of the leaves and flowers
they will be glad to have the opportunity of painting them; this is as
much a part of nature work as any other, and it should be used as such,
because it emphasises so strongly the side of appreciation of beauty, a
side very often neglected. It is here that the individual paint box is
so important. If children are to have any sense of colour they must
learn to match very truthfully; there is a great difference between the
blue of the forget-me-not and of the bluebell, but only by experiment
can children discover that the difference lies in the amount of red in
the latter. By means of discoveries of this kind they will see new
colours in life around them, a