HORTICULTURE FOR THE SCHOOLS. 297 



and unfitted to work, and that opinion is confined to a small 

 number by no means, but it is quite widespread, and you are all 

 perhaps familiar with the complaints made against this system. 

 I believe a step in advance was certainly made when our most 

 thoughtful educators came to the conclusion that any system of 

 education which is not supplemented actively by manual train- 

 ing is not conducive to character training, and I believe in the 

 light of later experience they might have supplemented the state- 

 ment by saying that no training was conducive to character 

 building that was not actively supplemented by the practical 

 things in life. You will notice this complaint is not made against 

 such as come out of the Mechanics Art High School in St. Paul 

 or out of the State Agricultural College, but, on the contrary, 

 one man said to Prof. Weitbrecht, "You do not turn out com- 

 iiion, plain workmen, you turn out mechanics." I think the 

 graduates of our agricultural school tell their own story. \\'hy 

 this difference, this marked contrast and difference? I believe 

 the vital fault lies in the lack of this element of practical train- 

 ing. I believe you will find you are training simply to the end 

 that thev receive the principles of ordinary education, but you 

 will find that you must train for the actual activities which the 

 boys and girls will meet and have to carry on after they leave 

 school, and I believe that is the essential element. That is 

 rather a radical statement, but I believe experience has borne 

 that out. 



You can teach the children to know the difference 

 between the real and the sham, and I believe if you wish to 

 produce efficient, earnest men and women you must bring the 

 realities into their school life and equip them with the best that the 

 modern day intelligence can give them. X.:.,v there is, I believe, 

 a great defect in our graded schools. There is a lack of this 

 essential element, and great as the changes have been, I believe 

 that the changes that are to come are to be of a much more sweep- 

 ing nature, in fact people are coming to demand a change in the 

 educational system that will bring children in contact with the large 

 matters in life, and children are beginning to feel as well as par- 

 ents that it is not only unwise but criminal to turn children out into 

 the world with practically jio preparation. It is in the graded 

 schools where the large mass of children are reached. A large per- 

 centage never see the high school, but they leave school in the fifth, 

 sixth or seventh grade, much earlier than is required to prepare for 

 high school. They go out from its influence, and they are never 

 reached by any educational influence afterward. 



