Summer Meeting. 83 



der the light of higher education, and the teacher has learned that what 

 is most disagreeable to the mind is not best for it any more than what is 

 most disagreeable to the body is best for it. Obedience is not necessarily 

 a virtue and the child who is constantly subject to the will of another and 

 has no opportunity to carry out its own desires is destined to grow up 

 a weekling, to pursue the course of least resistance, be unfitted for the 

 best duties of citizenship and be unable to stand by the right or resist 

 the wrong against opposition. The child should be guided but not sub- 

 dued. Independence and individuality should be encouraged, and no place 

 offers the opportunity for the proper development of these traits better 

 than the school garden. Wherever space will admit the child should be 

 given a plot of ground of its own, aside from that under the teacher's 

 direction and at some distance from it, where it may grow whatever it 

 pleases outside of school hours or during play time. If it loves a bed 

 of violets let it have the violets ; if it prefers a bed of onions let it have 

 the onions; if it wants scarlet geraniums it should not be forced to grow 

 white primroses ; if it wishes a mixture of violets, onions, corn, geraniums 

 and pumpkins, let it have it. The play of its childish fancy and the liberty 

 enjoyed will do it good. It will profit by its failures as much as by its 

 successes. It would be said by many, perhaps the majority of people, 

 that such a mixture would be a burlesque on gardening. It would be 

 no more so than the first pictures of the artist is a burlesque on art or 

 the wooden horse or the broom stick with a bridle on it is a burlesque 

 on horsemanship. The mind of the child must develop gradually and the 

 more independently it can develop in the right direction the better. 



Though but a few trees may be planted about the school ground too 

 much importance can not be placed on the proper care, uses and preserva- 

 tion of trees, for upon the trees of the earth all other vegetation must de- 

 pend for a successful existence, and without trees man himself could 

 not exist. Compare the prosperous, densely populated countries of his- 

 tory, with their present condition, after the forests have been removed. 

 The scanty population that remains is eking out a miserable existence. 

 Many years ago a few wiser heads foresaw the same results if the de- 

 struction of the American forests were continued, and began with tongue 

 and pen to avert the calamity. One of the first writers in America to 

 wield his pen in behalf of the protection of forests was William Cullen 

 Bryant, the father of American literature, or the poet of the trees, as he 

 has been appropriately styled. He grew up where trees were his earliest 

 companions, and with the nature of a true poet learned to love them more 

 and more, to see and appreciate their beauty and feel their uplifting in- 

 fluence. Many useful suggestions and ennobling thoughts relating to 



