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CHAPTER VIII
THE ARMY OF SCHOOL GARDENERS
How the Children of America were Mobilized by the Government
As a factor in education the war garden
and its successor, the victory garden, have established themselves in a way that
will prove a permanent influence in American life. Through the school millions
of children have been awakened to the value of gardening as a patriotic effort
of war time and an undertaking worth while at all times. They have been taught
that nature is a generous giver who requires only to be encouraged. They have
been impressed with the importance of food production and trained into an army
of practical producers. The national benefit from such teaching and training
cannot fail to be far-reaching in its effects and a lasting force in the lives
of the future men and women of America.
In the development of school gardeners two ideas were given
consideration. An immediate increase in food production went hand in hand with
the educational value of the work. It was not expected, of course, that all
school children would become immediate producers, but it was certain that the
great volume of work undertaken in the schools would be of appreciable worth in
swelling the total of war time food production and of even greater importance in
creating a vast army of future citizens trained to intelligent application of
the principles of thrift, industry, service, patriotism and responsibility. The
results have been highly gratifying to those concerned with the undertaking.
For the mobilization of the school children the logical
agency was the United States Bureau of Education of the Department of the
Interior. P.P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, approached the
undertaking with broad vision and keen foresight characteristic of his
administration of educational affairs for the Federal Government. Under his
guidance there came into being the United States School Garden Army, mobilized
with effective promptness and swung into action under the leadership of J.H.
Francis as director. Dr. Francis is an educator of note who was drafted into
this important work by Commissioner Claxton, and he brought to bear on the
enterprise perception and aggressiveness which achieved results of national
importance in comparatively brief time.
 ALONG
THE EAST RIVER FRONT
Supervised by competent instructors the school children of New York City
produced some excellent results in the gardens which they planted in various
sections of the city. The very orderly one here shown, with a large number of
children industriously engaged, is in Thomas Jefferson Park, 114th Street and
East River.
President Wilson was keenly interested in the United States
School Garden Army. His cordial endorsement was expressed in a letter to
Secretary Lane which served as the corner stone of the structure and an
inspiration to the children of America. This letter was as follows:
February 25, 1918.
My dear Mr. Secretary:
I sincerely hope that you may be successful through the
Bureau of Education in arousing the interest of teachers and children in the
schools of the United States in the cultivation of home gardens. Every boy and
girl who really sees what the home garden may mean will, I am sure, enter into
the purpose with high spirits, because I am sure they would all like to feel
that they are in fact fighting in France by joining the home garden army. They
know that America has undertaken to send meat and wheat and flour and other
foods for the support of the soldiers who are doing the fighting for the men and
women who are making the munitions, and for the boys and girls of Western
Europe, and that we must also feed ourselves while we are carrying on this war.
The movement to establish gardens, therefore, and to have the children work in
them is just as real and patriotic an effort as the building of ships or the
firing of cannon. I hope that this spring every school will have a regiment in
the Volunteer War Garden Army.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson
Hon. Franklin K. Lane,
Secretary of the Interior.
From the outset the United States School Garden Army
allied itself with the National War Garden Commission for the conduct of the
work for which it had been organized. This affiliation covered not only food
production through gardening but also the work of food conservation through home
canning and drying.
One of the first requisites of the newly formed army was that
its membership should be reached with technical instructions so compiled as to
be authoritative and so presented as to be easily understood. To accomplish this
the United States School Garden Army utilized the publications of the National
War Garden Commission.
In response to official request, these were furnished by the Commission in
sufficient quantities for circulation among the schools of America. The
Commission's book "War Vegetable Gardening" was made the standard book of
instructions and it reached every school in the land through the machinery of
the United States School Garden Army. In similar way the Commission's book on
canning and drying was distributed and given official recognition in the
educational world.
 ONE
OF CLEVELAND'S SCHOOL GARDENS
Is it any wonder pupils take a pride in a garden like this? The picture shows
the fine state of cultivation on the grounds of Rosedale school, in Cleveland.
The combination of landscape beauty with vegetable growing commends itself to
general attention.
The satisfactory results achieved through the coöperation of the two
organizations was given expression by Director Francis in the following letter
to the Commission under date of October 5th, 1918:
My dear Mr. Ridsdale:
I do not feel that I should allow the Garden season of
1917-1918 to close without acknowledging to you the very great service the
National War Garden Commission has rendered the United States School Garden
Army organization, and telling you that we deeply appreciate the cordial,
earnest way in which you have coöperated with us in working out our problem.
For 1919 the work of the United States School Garden Army
was further expanded and standardized. Perceiving the value of school
coöperation through the Bureau of Education, the National War Garden Commission
prepared special printings of the victory editions of these books.
These are for the exclusive use of the United States School
Garden Army. On the front cover of the school edition of each book appears a
reproduction in the original colors, of the poster of Maginel Wright Enright,
which has become known as the pictorial trademark of the Army. This poster
presents Uncle Sam as the Pied Piper of the Gardens, at the head of an army of
children bearing garden tools as their weapons. As an introduction the books
carry an official proclamation to the schools of America, calling on them for
further work in the cause of food production and conservation. In his
proclamation Director Francis says:
The food problems of peace give renewed emphasis to
the demand for food production. With the ending of the conflict came the
necessity for feeding many millions more of the people of Europe. Food
Administrator Hoover tells us this country must send 20,000,000 tons of food
overseas during the year ending July 1, 1919. To make this possible it is
essential that production be carried on to the utmost of our possibilities.
The farms have lost a large proportion of their manpower. Some one must take
the places of the men who have left the farms and of the women who have gone
into channels of industry in which they were not previously employed.
The boys and girls of America must help to do this. There is
a mighty army of them, thirty to fifty million strong, who have heads,
hearts, and hands, leisure time and patriotism to spare. There are also
hundreds of thousands of acres of tillable land uncultivated. The problem
is, therefore, to get these two factors together. It is a problem requiring
careful, efficient organization. The organization is here, one of the most
powerful in the country––the public school system of America. To build
another capable of doing the work in hand would require years and cost
millions. School gardens and school-supervised home gardens have received
serious attention, but only a negligible part of the work has been
undertaken. The school system should and must undertake the work with
seriousness and determination and give the world results that are real and
adequate.
Superintendents of schools must make their schools a vital,
an actual, force in giving more food to the world and in conserving what is
produced. They must do this in addition to talking and writing about this
somewhat spectacular and highly interesting phase of the school's part in
the war. And this is their work, not to be sublet to other agencies who by
the very nature of the problem can not solve it but can only contribute to
its solution.
Commissioner Claxton and Director Francis
are deeply gratified at the success of the garden movement among the school
children and greatly impressed with its promise for the future. The interest
thus awakened and the practical knowledge thus acquired by the young
gardeners, they regard as one of the most important national benefits of the
war and one which will be of immeasurable worth in its influence on American
citizenship.
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