126 THE GARDENER. [March 



of gardening, for it is practical business ; the man must therefore exer- 

 cise his hands. Further, knowledge, to be useful, must have a primary- 

 object; hence the first object in imparting knowledge is to prepare the 

 lad for the relation in life he is fitted or designed to occupy. But the- 

 oretical knowledge will never fit a man for being a gardener ; for, spec- 

 ulate as we please, the true definition of gardening is dress, and keep — 

 two practical ideas ; hence, as there is no connection between the ideal 

 and the practical, there can be no connection between gardening and 

 science. Therefore a knowledge of science cannot be of primary im- 

 portance to a young gardener. But knowledge ought to have a final 

 object. The ultimate end, then, of all knowledge is to fit us for the 

 higher and nobler employments hereafter. " Sed hie laboris, hie 

 dificilis ; " this, of course, includes moral and religious knowledge — 

 it is secular which concerns us at present. The question of education 

 is interminable as the minds, the countries, and ages connected with 

 it. To measure or bridge it, then, seems impossible ; perhaps some of 

 its dangerous reefs might be buoyed. In the popular language of the 

 day, the common systems of grinding and cramming appear to be 

 doomed. The idea of grinding is, constant application to one branch 

 of learning — such as Latin or Greek, without the remotest chance of 

 either being useful in after-life. The idea of cramming is, quantity 

 — the amount of knowledge imparted, the books devoured. Experience 

 has proved both to be errors. It is to be feared that, in training for the 

 gardener's business, we are not free from those errors, when, as was 

 said before, we distract the minds of young men with speculative 

 knowledge before they have learned the first principles of the practical 

 — further, in hunting after anything and everything but the right 

 thing ; for it is the amount digested, not collected (to use a medical 

 expression), that makes the chyle of a practical life. Again, the ideas, 

 a finished education, a trade learned, are both of them errors — in 

 fact, each is a contradiction ; for all that can be done in either is 

 simply to put men in the way of acquiring knowledge. The citadel 

 of ignorance lies intrenched in our own minds, therefore it must be 

 stormed by self-exertion. Hence our motto ever ought to be. Progres- 

 sive Development. 



In the realisable paper of " W." he seems to think that he has caught 

 the type of the ideal and of the practical, and by some species of 

 metamorphosis would like to change those forms into a new body. 

 He may well say with Ovid, " Di c^eptis, Adspirate meis ; " yes, and 

 add with him, by way of parenthesis. For it is by you such things 

 are efi'ected. He will excuse me, then, when I say that I have no 

 object but the elucidation of truth in a friendly spirit. In my opin- 

 ion, then, both types are failures. The first is the wrong man in the 



