152 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tion from criticism, or from condemnation on account of age or of sacred asso- 

 ciations. The more fact that a thing exists, and has existed even for centuries, 

 constitutes no valid reason why it should he allowed to continue to exist. 

 It must prove, or its friends must prove, that it is worthy to live, that it is of 

 value to the present generation and to the present state of affairs. 



It will not, therefore, he sufficient to affirm and to establish the affirmation, 

 that the public schools have done good service in the past, that they have sent 

 oui from their rude walls strong men and noble women; that they have been 

 indeed fountains of purity and all excellence in other days. All this maybe ad- 

 mitted or denied, and the real questions still remain. 



AV r hat are these schools now? What are they doing for the State, for the 

 community, and for the general progress of humanity at the present time? 



Stage-coaches and canal-boats had a fitting place in the activities and affairs 

 of previous generations, but the progress of the 'world has left them a long way 

 behind. Has the age outgrown and is it ready to cast off the schools of our 

 ancestors as it does their means of locomotion? We, or our children, will have 

 to answer these questions over again in the near future. The duty of the hour 

 is clear enough. We are to examine, with care and candor, what these men 

 have already said, and other statements which they will utter in our ears. 

 Admit all that is true ; expose clearly, but in good temper, whatever is false or 

 fallacious; shun no fair discussion, and shirk no real or faucied difficulties. 



We may as well frankly admit that the schools are not perfect; that many 

 of them are open to serious and damaging criticism ; that they are not doing 

 all that they ought to do in imparting intellectual instruction. We may also 

 admit further that our common district schools have not kept pace with the 

 general progress of the age in other things and in other directions. 



The good people in many districts have greatly improved their farms and the 

 grounds about their dwellings, but they have allowed the grounds about the 

 school-houses to remain in the same shameful and disgraceful condition in 

 which they were thirty or twenty years ago. They have replaced their own 

 early, rude, and poor houses and barns by new and, in many cases, elegant 

 ones. But the same dilapidated old school-house still opens its uninviting 

 doors. They have provided tasteful furniture for their homes, and improved 

 tools and machines for their farms, but the old hacked and battered benches 

 and desks continue to torture their children, and to vex and discourage their 

 teachers. 



We may, still farther, be entirely honest with ourselves, and acknowledge 

 with unfeigned humiliation that our schools have neglected the moral and aes- 

 thetic part of our children's nature ; that they have not, to any considerable 

 extent, been nurseries of good morals or of good taste. 



We may make all these admissions, and possibly some even more unpalat- 

 able, and, after all this, affirm that the public school system is of vital impor- 

 tance to us as a nation, and that it must and shall be preserved. It has great 

 and grievous faults and imperfections, but it is nevertheless of priceless value. 

 It is obvious that our present institutions would not long survive its total de- 

 struction. Ignorance may not be the mother of vice, but certainly it is not 

 the mother of virtue and morality. Half-educated people may^be fit tools for 

 designing demagogues, but the teachings of all history prove that people 

 wholly uneducated are still more ready and fatal instruments in their hands. 



Let us inquire now, briefly, what bearing this discussion has, or should have, 

 upon the subject before us, the ornamentation and care of school-houses and 

 grounds. Its value, as already stated, lies in the motives which it presents, or 



