290 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



men could get if we would only learn to prize the beauty and 

 the stillness of the life of nature. 



x\nd so that is why it seems to me, ladies and gentlemen, and 

 especially you busy business men who are among the managers 

 of all our schools in our cities, you should encourage nature 

 study, and a love of nature among the pupils of those schools. 

 You are like the little lady whom I met on the way to Niagara 

 Falls. We live too much amid the lovely world of nature un- 

 conscious of its teachings, and oblivious of its beauty, its peace. 

 I wish I might be sure that you would give yourselves, and 

 your boys and girls, especially your children, a chance in 

 your schools for an education in the nature that they enjoy, 

 not merely that which they see unconsciously, but give ihem 

 opportunities for the study of nature until they are masters 

 and mistresses of it. Not simply because they pass under the 

 trees of Connecticut on their way to school does it follow 

 that they will know anything about the culture of trees, or 

 of the management or influence exerted by them. I found in 

 New Hampshire that not all of the farmers' sons and daugh- 

 ters had a passion to save the splendid forests on the White 

 Mountains, which are being so rapidly destroyed, that their 

 grandchildren will never see them unless something effective 

 is done to save them within ten years. Let us train the 

 children to love and save these natural beauties of our 

 country. It does not follow, you know, that those who have 

 lived under the shadow of a great public library, or of a 

 great university, have put their hearts to school in the woods, 

 and have learned to see the things we should like to make 

 plain on this important subject. The neighbors of books too 

 often are too busy to open them. Even the dwellers in the 

 loveliest parts of the world are often too busy to look at their 

 matchless landscapes, the purple and gold of their splendid 

 sunsets, their noble rivers or peaceful lakes. We fancy we 

 must go to Niagara or to the mountains for scenery. Many 

 a choice scene lies spread before the New England farmer's 

 door. We fancy we must go to a great public library for a 

 piece of great literature. Shakespeare drew his inspiration 

 from among the plain people. 



There is one essay that I wish was a text-book in every 

 little school in Connecticut, and that every boy and girl might 

 know what its philosophy meant when they read it: Emer- 



