140 State Horticultural Society. 



innumerable facts. I am perfectly satisfied that you can just cram and 

 cram facts into your minds and then really know no more than when 

 you started. So far as we are storing up facts and not understanding" 

 all about them and the nature of things, we are failing. When we learn to 

 reason and use these facts, we are, of course, very useful. I think you 

 will agree with me that the education of today is becoming more prac- 

 tical. 



We are not just spending our time in reading and reading and get- 

 ting dates and dates, but we are beginning to look at the problems of 

 life and try to understand them for ourselves. Think how to applv what 

 we learn. W^e are beginning to teach our little people something about 

 nature study. In some cases, we call it horticultural work. We like to 

 study live things instead of reading nothing but plain dry facts. I be- 

 lieve that this is a very good thing. A good thing that is coming about. 

 To make our children study about the things ar»und us as the horticul- 

 tural people are becoming interested in our education in our public 

 schools, we have hopes of doing much along this line. I will mention a 

 few things along this line. About five years ago we began teaching 

 horticultural work in our summer schools. We had it in the summer 

 schools, because that is the time to take it. At first, we enrolled ii in- 

 that course. We did not do a great work at first, but we noticed the 

 plants around us. We studied how a plant propagated itself, how the 

 little seed was changed into the little plant. We took up the study of 

 plants all the way through. 



Alany of our teachers are now taking up this method in their 

 schools. The Carthage schools have. Ihey begun with the window- 

 box studies. They put them in the window in the school rooms in the 

 winter so that they might get interested and study them. They finally 

 planted things in their yard and you have no idea of the work they did 

 and how much it added to the beauty of the yard and it caused others all 

 over town to become interested and beautify their own homes. The 

 school gave prizes for this kind of work. They gave prizes for the best 

 kept front yards, prizes for the best kept beds of different kinds of plants. 

 Had regular contests and awarded prizes. That was the way the city 

 began to beautify the walks and lawns and drive- ways. It is w^onderful 

 how such an influence will spread. How it makes the town more beau- 

 tiful, how it could make the streets prettier. It teaches us the nature of 

 things and at the same time causes the young to learn to love work and 

 at the same time teaches many a lesson in horticultural work. They learn 

 to think and then to applv what they do know. One school that I re- 

 member, and that is the Columbia high school. The teacher began the 

 work there. He took up the work by putting up window plants. He 



