Today, in its entirety, Root Simple brings you an article on a school garden program in Los Angeles by writer and German literature translator Mary Richards Gray from the June 1916 issue of The Craftsman. Some context: Los Angeles has always been a little ‘rough around the edges.’ LA was also, in the early 20th century, the wealthiest agricultural county in the US, producing high-value crops such as citrus and walnuts. This particular attempt to get LA’s “civic house in order” recalls the strategy of 4-H clubs: Adults are set in their ways so you’ve got to get to the kids to make change happen. Work your way through the rambling early 20th century prose and you’ll find some solid advice we could really use to get our present day civic house in order. You can read all of the 1916 Craftsman issues for free in Google Books.

by Mary Richards Gray
The desire for beauty, health, order is inherent in mankind, is among the deepest and most powerful forces in life. Man’s first consciousness of these desires is operative only within the narrow confines of his own personality. Then, as he grows wiser, he wishes beauty, health and happiness for his family, then for his neighbor, his city, country, until finally he is eager for the joy and the advancement of the whole world. He no longer thinks that his interests are confined only within himself, he knows that the boundary of his life extends until it touches the uttermost ends of the world. He feels that his home is the world, not just merely the corner lot in a small town upon which he has built a house. He understands that as he makes his own lot more beautiful he has increased the beauty of the world, that every improvement he makes in his own house is made for his community as well, that it is virtually impossible for him to work for himself alone, that he rises or falls with his neighbors, with his countrymen.

This larger, pleasanter, truer outlook on life has recently been reached in most interesting manner by the citizens, old and young, of Los Angeles through a widespread civic housekeeping siege. Even the children now understand that as they clean up their small corner of their yard and make flowers to blossom where weeds once bristled, they help clean up the city and become true gardeners. If every child in a town and every town in the country followed the Los Angeles plan of campaign for a more beautiful and healthful city would be the beauty spot of the world.

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