112 State Horticultural Society. 



HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION. 

 By Mrs. Geo. E. Dugan, Sedalia, Mo. 



"Princes and loi'ds may flourish or may fade : 

 A breath can make them, as a breath has made ; 

 But a bold yeomanry, their country's pride. 

 When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 



Ours is a chimerical age as regards education. A knowledge of 

 living things and of life-sustaining principles are looked upon as useless. 

 An attempt to gain really practical information subjects the student to 

 ridicule. Is it not better to know how to make fruit trees thrive and 

 yield a bountiful supply of health-giving food, than it is to recite Cicero 

 in the original or conjugate Greek verbs while starving to death? 



The noble arts of agriculture and horticulture, the only steadfast 

 foundation of national prosperity, are sneered at by the little people who 

 throng the colleges; those who know a great deal concerning certain 

 text books, and next to nothing about how to earn a living. 



"Horticulture in the schools !" shrieks the pedagogue. "I shall 

 oppose it, it is nonsense to introduce a study of this nature; to do so will 

 disarrange our entire program. It will also consume valuable time 

 which ought to be given to psychical research, or to the stndv of the 

 ancient languages." 



"Agriculture and horticulture can be learned by instinct, men 

 naturally know how to farm ! Why should a boy be required to waste 

 his time on these things ?" 



Thus they argue, and thus more and more are the youths of our land 

 turned away, and taught to despise the fundamental principles of all 

 education. 



The earth is a wide and deep laboratory of complex agents, which 

 must be studied and mastered before either soil cultivation or horticul- 

 ture work can fully succeed. The good farmer in this age should be a 

 w^ell taught man in the arts of agriculture and horticulture. Principles 

 may be learned by reading and study, therefore if we arc to continue 

 the race of agriculturists, we must no longer seek to degrade, but rather 

 to dignify the occupation of soil culture. 



