No. 85.] 379 



ed at least half an acre of land for experimental gardening, under the 

 instruction of a leader who was required to be a practical agricultu- 

 rist. " Since these schools have come into action," says an intelligent 

 tourist in that country, " an entirely new generation of cultivators 

 has arisen, and the consequence is, that agriculture in Bavaria, is car- 

 ried to a higher degree of perfection than it is any where else in the 

 central part of Germany. The result of the whole of the informa- 

 tion procured, and of the observation made, is that we think the in- 

 habitants of Bavaria promise soon to be, if they are not already, the 

 happiest people in Germany." 



Nor has the influence of this enlightened system of agricultural 

 instruction in the primary schools of that country, been confined to 

 the mere improvement of the soil. "The roads, bridges and other 

 public works have undergone a corresponding improvement ; individu- 

 al comforts have been greatly multiplied ; business of every kind has 

 been improved ; and human intellect, reanimated as it were, has burst 

 its cerements and become an efficient aid in the noble work of im- 

 provement. The public roads are all lined with ornamental, fruit- 

 bearing or forest trees, and furnished with guide boards, mile stones, 

 and seats, at intervals, of stones or sods, for the weary traveller." 

 This novel species of education, and the blessings which have 

 flowed from it, and the still greater blessings which appear in 

 prospect, have resulted from the wise provisions of the gov- 

 ernment, aideil by individual enterprise. M. Hazzi, the editor of an 

 agricultural journal, at Munich, an active philanthropist and a devo- 

 ted patriot, contributed essentially to a result so gratifying. 



It was the opinion of Fellenberg, one of the most enlightened and 

 judicious educators of the age, and the founder of the w^ell known 

 school at Hofwyl, that agricultural pursuits were most favorable to a 

 sound and healthy development of the mind — that the child, when 

 surrounded and occupied with the objects of nature, instead of the pro- 

 ductions of human skill, the arts and sciences, which are at once the 

 work of man and the sceptre of his power, perceives continually such 

 luxuriant richness, such varying and inimitable beauty, such immense 

 operations, as to place the highest eff"ort of man in the strongest con- 

 trast with infinite power : and that such a practical and scientific ac- 

 quaintance with agriculture, as may, under proper regulations, be 

 taught in our elementary institutions of learning, furnishes the most 

 ample means for direct intellectual instruction and moral improve- 

 ment. In a physical point of view, it contributes, in his judgment, 

 to health and vigor of body, from the necessity of active employment, 

 in the open air, when in its purest state ; and, as a science, tends not 

 only to cultivate the spirit of observation and of systematic effort, to 

 exercise the judgment, and to produce habits of foresight and pru- 

 dence, but to the acquisition and practice of the most important 

 branches of knowledge. In laying out and arranging the ground for 

 different crops, in the various processes of irrigation, in removing 

 stones from the fields and clearing the ground of weeds, in the selec- 

 tion and improvement of the various instruments of husbandry, and 

 the best methods of cultivation of the soil, scarcely a department of 

 intellectual science fails to be frequently put in requisition • and the 



