Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 112, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1911 — Flowers as Antidote for Crime [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Flowers as Antidote for Crime

BOSTON. —The wayward boy—the boy with criminal or mischievous tendencies —may be served with greater advantage to himself and his future development by being apprenticed to a gardener or florist than by going into any other line of work, is the opinion held by Prof. Charles Sargent of Harvard. “There is no doubt that the line of work in which a man engages acts upon bis personality and that gardening has an elevating effect upon the men employed in it," he says. “I am told that a surprisingly large percentage of murderer* are men who hare at one time or another been employed as butchers. That is an extreme* Instance of occupation, but I might say that at the other end of the proposition is gardening. “A wayward boy thrown into work among growing plants would be brought under a better influence than under almost any other occupation be might find. Any association with

plants and flowers' cannot fail to have an elevating effect on the human mind. “Regarding the way to Interest a wayward boy in flowers, an absorbing question is opened, since a general liking for flowers is not generally found tn children. The fondness for flowers generally comes later in life. Still, if a wayward boy was set to work under the elevating direction of a gardener or florist, who would impress upon him regularity of habits, together with a working knowledge of plants and their culture, it would go a great way toward putting a boy or the right track!'' 1