EDUCATION WHAT IS ITT — GIR^RD COLLEGE. 



arboriculturists reject the name Wellingtonia, and adopt that of Sequoia. Let us 

 do so in this country. We can afford to drop the name of Wellingtonia, and 

 especially as the tmth of science demands it. 



EDUCATION— WHAT IS IT?— GIRAED COLLEGE. 



In the following communication from one of our far seeing philosophers, we recog- 

 nise an idea of much importance. The example of great institutions with liberal 

 endowments are of great import ; man is imitative, and our people especially so ; 

 every point, therefore, where example tells, should be studied by those who assume 

 the vastly important task of teaching. That much has been done we freely admit; 

 that every thing cannot be done at once is an axiom we are not disposed to dispute. 

 But that there are some things, which, if done early, will give earlier results, is no 

 less true than that many matters neglected for a few years will require as many to 

 repair the neglect. Such is the project so long ago suggested by our valued corres- 

 pondent of planting the grounds of Girard College with trees that would not only 

 shade the orphans there assembled with such beneficent views, but that would teach 

 them valuable lessons to be carried into their various walks in future private life. 



Education is of various kinds ; on some, knowledge acquired through the study 

 of books makes no valuable or lasting impression. In others, the mind is so active 

 as only to require guiding, while in many the heart and the moral feelings are alone 

 deficient; to these mainly, no doubt, we should turn our attention. But example 

 is better than precept, and those examples which are daily before us are the ones 

 which will influence the future. The plan proposed in what follows is one among 

 many which have been neglected, of so simple and easy accomplishment that wonder 

 may be expressed at its long omission. Once done it would be completed for a 

 century. 



Not two miles beyond this rich college, will be found an example of a public 

 school set down on the side of the Ridge Road, with the boundaries enclosed by a 

 handsome iron railing (a job for some partisan probably), and here the care of the 

 grounds has entirely ceased; it has a few old decrepid fruit trees without fruit ; no 

 grass, but on the contrary it is overrun, where not beaten down into mud-holes, by 

 the worst description of weeds ! 



What sort of education for neatness and order will the little fellows taught here 

 carry to their homes? — none whatever; and who is to be blamed for it? The city 

 distributors of Girard's bounty, who have not set the example of the highest im- 

 provement, that of an Arboretum, in those palatial grounds ! 



Of the thousands who visit the college every year, it may be conceived that very 

 many do so to learn what improvements can be carried home to their own communi- 

 ties ; did they see a little science brought to bear upon the art of planting, they 

 would be delighted, and they would take to other places ideas to be promulgated 

 and acted upon in their own neighborhoods. It is on this account as much as for 



