208 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tlie "trials and tribulations" of a fruit dealer, the life of a bachelor, or 

 anything in that line, I might have entered into the subject, backed up 

 by some experience. 



However, since my weakness in this line was, perhaps, not known 

 to the Secretary, I will pardon him, and hope the critics will deal with 

 me gently — if I fail to do justice to this important subject. 



In looking about us, we find prominent among the institutions of 

 our land, that we may feel proud of, and to which we may look with 

 great hopes in the future, is our wide- spread and firmly established 

 free school system, which offers alike to the rich and the poor, regard- 

 less of race and station, a liberal school education. 



We may truly be grateful for living in a land and under a form of 

 government where the great importance of education is recognized and 

 liberally provided for. 



Eeviewing the progress made in the past quarter of a century, 

 we find great changes. Many of you will remember the primitive 

 school houses of our early settlers, where' school was taught, on an 

 average, about three months out of twelve, and where the blue spelling 

 book and a well prepared hickory occupied prominent places as in- 

 structors. I well remember the little country school house of my boy- 

 hood, located on the brow of a wooded hill, the grounds uninclosed 

 and unadorned, save by nature's untouched forest trees. To-day we 

 find that many of those primitive structures have made way for more 

 modern and often quite costly buildings, comfortably furnished and 

 supplied with improved school books and competent teachers, in which 

 from seven to nine months school annually is maintained. 



Permit me, briefly, to call attention to our present free school 

 system, showing the educational progress of this State. 



There were enrolled in the public schools of Missouri in 1881, 

 723,484 pupils; in 1885 there were 805,313, showing an increase in four 

 years of 81,829. In 1881 there were employed in, this State 11,059 

 teachers; in 1885 over 20,000. There is but one State in the Union 

 ahead of Missouri in her permanent school fund. Fifteen years ago 

 there was no such a thing as a Normal school in the State; to-day we 

 have three. 



I might go on and give you statistics showing the general progress 

 of school work, but suffice it to say, that there have been greater 

 developments in science and learning in the last twenty-five years than 

 were made in a century preceding. But while we have wonderfully 

 advanced in this direction, while our school houses have been remod- 

 eled and enlarged, our system of education improved by adding higher 



