1869.] THE EDUCATION QUESTION. 411 



whole profession — if by education it is to be done, as some suppose. 

 We are not going to plunge into the discussion for or against any- 

 particular view of the subject. Much that we should have liked to 

 have said has been very much better said already ; not fool enough 

 to rush into criticism, having a wholesome dread of blows, still 

 not sufficiently angelic to fear to tread in the wake and shade of 

 wiser men. Since the Editor invites opinion on the subject, we 

 propose only to give a few notions about education in general, and 

 gardeners' education in particular. We have been trying to define 

 in a few words, in our own mind, what education is, but have failed ; 

 and yet we hear of wonderful lots of peojDle having finished their 

 education. AYe readily understand a process of education. That edu- 

 cation is not knowledge is certain ; and one may have lots of know- 

 ledge and no education, and yet in being educated we are acquiring 

 knowledge. Education seems something preliminary to knowledge — 

 the key to open the strong box, the Rosetta stone which is to decipher 

 the great hieroglyph of knowledge. Education is a process of train- 

 ing for some purpose, as we do dogs and soldiers ; but we may end 

 with the training and never begin the purpose. What lots of edu- 

 cated people we have nowadays of both sexes to no purpose ! Indeed, 

 to be educated has become quite a fashionable distinction, and yet to 

 be highly educated is compatible with any degree of ignorance. In- 

 deed, we venture to say that the ignorance of some of our acquain- 

 tance is in proportion to the extent of their education. We know 

 young gentlemen who have been jockeyed through the Eton and 

 Oxford course, and finished complete muffs. No doubt Lord Dun- 

 dreary is an educated man. However, we forget the purpose ; so the 

 Eton and Oxford education may be the training for gentlemen. We 

 fear many have their pow^er of vision trained away, for to be highly 

 educated is to see nothing, to look vacant, to admire nothing, to laugh 

 at nothing — in short, not to be vulgar : savage accomplishments ; but 

 extremes meet. We hope the young gardener is not about to be so 

 super-educated as to overlook the " very common things." 



If education be a training for a purpose, the gardener must have 

 his special training ; and a twofold training — a mechanical and a mental. 

 The soldier gets his training on parade, the gardener must have his 

 in the garden ; but as the parade-ground could never make the soldier 

 a commanding officer, neither can the garden alone make a true gar- 

 dener. Every schoolmaster knows that education is not so much a 

 stuffing in as a pumping out of the mind, to give room for wholesome 

 ideas — indeed, a mind simple, vacant, and hungry, as it were, is in the 

 best possible condition to receive instruction ; but a mind choke-full 

 of conceit and great notions of its acquirements wants pumping out. 



