336 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



garden, which furnishes the material for instruction in botany and 

 serves in many ways for experiments with agricultural plants. 



"Sweden has made the widest extension in the development of 

 the school gardens. Scarcely any public school building there is 

 found without such a garden. Thirty years ago 22,000 children 

 were instructed in horticulture in Sweden. There are many gar- 

 dens in Belgium, where a large part of the population depends up- 

 on truck gardening, the result of which is attributed primarily to the 

 school garden and the extensive knowledge of horticulture among 

 the people. France also is doing much work along this line, there 

 being 28,000 elementary schools, each with a garden attached. 

 Many communities in Switzerland are giving attention to school 

 gardening, and they are gradually increasing in number. The gov- 

 ernment encourages them in this work. 



"The law in Austria prescribes instruction to be given in agri- 

 culture in all normal schools, and ordered the establishment of 

 school gardens in villages, for the purpose of aiding agriculture, and 

 provides also that instruction in natural history be connected with 

 work in school gardens. Mindful of the pedagogical and economical 

 importance of school gardens, the school authorities of Austria aided 

 the establishment and maintainance of these gardens and paid much 

 attention to proper plans, so that Austria has been able to overtake 

 other civilized countries in that particular feature of education. 



"The flourishing fruit culture of Bohemia can chiefly be attribu- 

 ted to the instruction which the inhabitants have received in the 

 school gardens attached to local public elementary schools. 



"The system adapted and successfully applied in Possneck. in 

 Thuringia, the birthplace of Froebel, is referred to as a typical Eu- 

 ropean application of the methods in question. Here the pupils come 

 every day to weed, water, hoe, train or otherwise attend to and reap 

 what they have sown. Parents come there to promenade and to en- 

 courage and help their children. In addition to the beds for vege- 

 tables, the garden contains a tree nursery and sections for industrial 

 plants, hemp, flax, wheat, corn, rye, etc. Collectively these coun- 

 tries have now not less than 45,000 elementary schools with school 

 garden equipment." 



In the face of these facts, it seems strange that during all this 

 time nobody thought of establishing gardens for lower schools. 

 Commenius, it is true, expressed the desire that every school have 

 a garden in which the pupils could delight their eyes in seeing trees, 

 flowers and herbs. He saw in the school garden a means of awak- 

 ening and nourishing the desire to learn. Also Pestalozzi, so enthu- 

 siastic for youth and popular education, demanded that children 



