HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION IN OUR COMMON SCHOOLS. 355 
HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION IN OUR COMMON 
SCHOOLS. 
JONATHAN FREEMAN, AUSTIN. 
All who have given thoughtful consideration to physical, mental and 
character building, will unhesitatingly acknowledge that the environmen# 
of a person, until twelve or fifteen years of age—such environment includ- 
ing birth, food, clothing, example, teaching, reading, conversation, asso- 
ciates, employment, etc., will always be a controlling influence throughout 
his entire life. To me it seems surpassingly strange that, while during the 
past twenty-five years our lawmakers have provided facilities for instruction 
to the general farmer and horticulturist in the way of state schools and ex- 
periment stations for young people over fifteen years of age, they did not 
at the same time provide ways and means for presenting elementary in- 
struction in the same line in the rural or common district school. The 
former are much better than nothing, but they cannot accomplish all the 
work desired until pupils are prepared in their earlier years to appreciate 
and utilize the later and fuller opportunities. 
Within a few years Nature Studies have been introduced in our high 
schools. This is well, but how much better to also have elementary work 
in the same line in the common schools. All who are deeply interested 
in the best welfare of the masses are decrying the fact that so many of the 
farmers’ children are rushing to the cities. It is not strange, when we con- 
sider the little that has been done in the way of educational laws to in- 
terest and instruct the child in his surroundings upon the farm. Even the 
laudable effort of providing libraries for our rural schools will largely fail 
in fulfilling its purpose under the present arrangements. A large per cent 
of our country population ought to remain upon the farms. Then how im- 
portant that we provide methods and forms of education that will, first, in- 
culcate a love for country life and labor and, secondly, such a knowledge 
of vegetable and animal life as will enable him to thus utilize and control 
the laws of nature, so that all possible financial returns may be obtained. 
’ In a recent number of the Popular Science Monthly, W. E. DeReimer 
has an exhaustive and interesting article on agricultural and horticultural 
education in European countries. They are far, far ahead of us in every 
phase of the matter. France has 3,362 experiment fields and many schools 
and laboratories. She has 3,600 pupil-teachers in training for teaching agri- 
culture and horticulture. Prussia maintains three grades of schools, lower, 
middle and higher, and pupils are trained in the culture of forests, shrubs, 
vines, fruits, flowers, etc. After giving a condensed review of the above 
paper, the “Ohio Farmer” writes as follows: “In view of all these facts, 
America has little to boast of in facilities for agricultural education. We 
should learn a lesson from France and popularize such education; begin it 
in the rural public schools and provide for the training of every boy who in- 
tends to be a farmer. We shall never make the progress we should in this 
direction until the foundation is laid in our public schools.” Prof. Conway 
McMillan writes in ‘“Minnesota Plant Life’: “An intelligent study of na- 
ture is one of the foundation stones of useful citizenship.” Pres. C. M. 
Hobbs, of the Indiana Horticultural Society (which has twenty local so- 
cieties like our own), in his last annual address, said: ‘‘There is no better 
all-round, thorough means of a full, well-rounded mental development than 
Nature Study affords. Every American citizen should own a home; and a 
