18S2. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



isms. They are always present in ferments and 

 putrefactions ; and they abound in the circulatory 

 vessels of human beings, and animals suffering j 

 from epidemic and contagious disorders. Prof, j 

 Burrill found them in great quantity in the j 

 early stages of the Pear and Peach diseases, and j 

 matter taken from a diseased part induced dis- [ 

 ease in healthy places, yet none of Cohn's experi- 

 ments prove that Bacteria ever interfere with life. 

 Their mission seems to be to rot up rapidly 

 organisms from which life has departed. They 

 are the scavengers of nature. 



Yet it has to be explained why they are in such 

 immense numbers in sick people, and why the 

 virus in which they abound carry the diseases 

 to the Pear and Peach tree. We have no doubt 

 these seeming 'contradictions will yet be recon- 

 ciled. It will not do to say the observations con- 

 tradict each other, and so both cannot be true. 

 There is no doubt of the correctness of the 

 observations on both sides, and it will be the 

 province of future researches to reconcile them. 



Art Museums and their Uses.— By Dalton 

 Dorr, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Museum 

 and School of Industrial Art. 



This is an appeal for an effort in the direction 

 of higher art education, and the establishment of 

 industrial education. The interesting facts gath- 

 ered together in this pamphlet must be of great 

 value to all who desire to study these great 

 questions. But the weak point of the treatise is 

 in its lack of any feasible plan of operations. 

 There is the usual vague suggestions, about the 

 State's duty, and municipal duty, and the duty 

 of citizens, and the very common recommenda- 

 tion with every thing under the sun that " it be 

 introduced into the public schools." The fact is 

 no one disputes the needs or advantages of indus- 

 trial education. The real question is, what is the 

 best method of introducing it? And it is the 

 misfortune of this as of all good subjects that 

 they are ruined by the introduction of crude and 

 ill-digested plans. For instance, the State of 

 Pennsylvania gave in 1873, $1,500,000 to erect a 

 hall in Fairmount Park as an industrial museum, 

 but not one dollar to sustain it afterwards. The 

 present prospects are that the hall will be closed 

 before many more years elapse. 



In like manner those who clamor for the intro- 

 duction of such teaching in the public schools 

 have no practical knowledge of school manage- 

 ment. Th ere are but about five school hours, and 

 already in the primaries and secondaries of 



Philadelphia there are about ten different branch- 

 es of study, or only about a half hour to each. 

 It is no uncommon circumstance as the writer 

 of this knows from actual experience as a 

 director of the public schools of Philadelphia, 

 that children pass through all the grades of the 

 primaries and reach the highest in the se- 

 condaries, with but a crude knowledge of the 

 three studies of most general importance. The 

 great portion of children want to leave school 

 when they reach the highest «grade in the se- 

 condaries, and this want should be encouraged 

 by those who desire to see their children thrive 

 by manual labor; but under the present plan of 

 teaching a little of everything, and nothing 

 thoroughly, it is necessary for a child to go 

 through grammar or high schools, and reach 

 the age of eighteen or nineteen perhaps, before 

 he has a thorough knowledge of language or 

 figures, and by which time he has lost all taste 

 for that "industrial" life which is to get him a 

 living by the use of his hands. 



These practical questions seldom occur to 

 authors of theoretical works like this before us. 



Sheldon's Dairy Farming.— Published by 

 Cassel, Petter, Galpin & Co., New York. Part 

 twenty-five of this beautifully illustrated subscrip- 

 tion work is on our table, and which completes 

 the work. The colored plate represents an 

 Alpine Dairy Station, and the text refers to dairy 

 commerce. 



THE FLOWER. 

 Once in a golden hour 



I cast to earth a seed, 

 Up there came a flower, 



The people said, a weed. 



To and fro they went 



Through my garden-bower, 

 And, muttering discontent, 



Cursed me and my flower. 



Then it grew so tall 



It wore a crown of light, 

 But thieves from o'er the wall 



Stole the seed by night. 



Sowed it far and wide. 



By every town and tower, 

 Till all the people cried : 



"Splendid is the flower." 



Read my little fable, 



He that runs may read ; 

 Most can raise the flowers now, 



For ail have got the seed. 



And some are pretty enough, 



And some are poor indeed ; 

 And now again the people 



Call it but a weed. 



— lenny'ioii. 



