EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HORTICULTURE. 167 



In my own town are two young French women, who beside 

 their labors in teaching, have cultivated their garden with their 

 own hands, raising all the vegetables for their own use. 



In contrast to these women of high culture and large oppor- 

 tunities, rises up before me the figure of a brave Irish woman, 

 who when an invalid daughter and three young children were 

 left to her care, worked all day in a mill, and in the hours 

 before and after her daily toil with her own hands dug and 

 planted her little garden, which, as she said, " always furnished 

 them with provisions, so that through the whole dark period of 

 the war, they never failed to have enough to eat." 



This occupation is also specially adapted to women by its 

 educational value. The great defect in woman's education is, 

 that it has no practical bearing. She learns statements, tables 

 and facts, but seldom rises to the perception of laws and their 

 application. 



Although exercising the most important function in the care 

 of the health and life of the human race, which during the 

 dangerous periods of infancy and youth is almost entirely con- 

 fided to her care, she is yet commonly ignorant of physiological 

 laws, and accustomed to base her actions upon vague tradition, 

 or a blind reliance on outside authority. If her children are 

 taken sick and die, she esteems herself unfortunate or provi- 

 dentially afflicted for the good of her soul. But she rarely 

 traces out the causes of disease in the insufficiency of her own 

 knowledge, or the unfaithfulness of her care. But sympa- 

 thy and religion are not expected to console the gardener for 

 the loss of his crops. Science has plainly demonstrated that 

 " as we sow, so must we reap," and woman as well as man 

 when she practises horticulture, will seek out the cause why her 

 neighbor's potatoes and cabbages are better than hers, or her 

 rose-bushes are devoured by slugs while his are free. All that 

 she learns in this department will have its value in her maternal 

 and home life. And then again, the love of beauty, so promi- 

 nent in woman's nature, may find here its full development. 

 From the laying out of an estate to the arrangement of a bouquet, 

 there is opportunity for all the order, symmetry, color and sen- 

 timent which can be expressed in outward symbols. Use, love 

 and beauty are all combined in the work, and from the solid 

 foundation of material economy, may be built up a structure of 



