34 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



study. It does not require a man whose locks are silvered to 

 know a f?reat deal about the bugs, animals and plants, but the 

 child's desires to know these things. Take a four-year-old 

 child, or five-year-old child, and at this time just stimulate the 

 interest that is already awake; at this time you develope those 

 instincts that are alive in the child, and after a while you will 

 find that he is fond of nature, a man who lives close to nature. 

 It does not make him the less of a mathematician. It does not 

 dwarf his instincts for phylosophical research, but it makes 

 him a better philosopher, a better mathematician. He knows 

 more about these things simply because they have come in 

 their logical order. He is not bound, dwarfed and stunted 

 upon physical things, not at all, but when he has reached the 

 age when these studies should be considered, he will take hold 

 of them readily and they will unfold in their natural order. 

 We have reversed the thing. We have taught them mathe- 

 matics and phylosophy. Tried to stimulate the instincts of 

 men and women in things already lost; we tried to bring them 

 back to that day when they might again enjoy to wander in the 

 grass and look at the leaves on the trees and watch the insects 

 as they crawl in the grass, and observe nature's things. We 

 have reversed the order and therefore have incapacitated men 

 from their childhood from the highest usefulness that they 

 might have obtained because of this reverse in the natural 

 order of things. But the college is doing a great deal in this 

 line, and so the societies are doing a great deal in this line. I 

 used to think if I bought a lot and I was permitted to build, and 

 ever had money enough to build a house, I used to think I 

 wanted an east front, a southeast corner best of all. I have 

 changed my mind. I think I would rather have a west front 

 and have the shade in the back yard in the afternoon. The 

 term horticulture means, hortus— garden, and cultra— culture, 

 to cultivate, from which we get this word. It means cultiva- 

 tion of garden hterally, while agriculture means the cultivation 

 of a field, and gives us an impression of a larger service. At 

 least horticulture has the idea of a cultivation of the garden. I 

 think if we live more in our back yards than on the front 

 porches we would be a more domestic and better people. I 

 think a nice lawn is beautiful. There is nothing in that seclu- 



