HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 157 



When I was on my way down east a few days ago I passed through 

 Springfield, Massachusetts, and while on the train, entered into 

 conversation with a man who told me that he had lived in that city 

 for the past thirty years. He said he had stood at the same place 

 in the Armory all that time, and his feet for ten hours each day, 

 had hardly moved a foot from the spot assigned at the same bench, 

 and the only thing he knew how to do was to file gun- cocks. Is 

 that the extent of knowledge we wish our farmer's boys to possess? 

 What we do want to do is to send them out good thinkers and 

 earnest workers trained to depend upon themselves to meet obsta- 

 cles and overcome them, and when anything goes wrong to ferret 

 out the cause and set it right. 



Now it seems to me that the idea of teaching by imitation, just 

 as a parrot learns to talk, is fundamentally wrong; is the very kind 

 of education that will dwarf us as farmers and horticulturists and 

 as men. That is just the education that the peasants of Europe 

 are receiving; while it must be admitted that they are raising such 

 crops as would amaze us here in Minnesota, but do we want our 

 farm boys to be like the emancipated serfs of Russia, ignorant 

 toiling drudges, with nothing to brighten their sunless homes and 

 and no hope of better times to come? That is just what we don't 

 want. Nor do we want to make machines of them like this man 

 who stood at the bench in Springfield and filed gun-cocks all 

 through those thirty dreary years. This whole question of labor 

 and capital and trusts, monopolies and boycotts has got to be 

 fought out on the educational field and when we make the farm 

 boys and those that are working at trades the most intelligent 

 people in the whole broad land we shall not be able to find any 

 other class of people that can grind them down or oppress them. 

 They will be in a position to protect themselves and dictate terms 

 to others and they are going to do this through the medium of 

 improved public schools and that, in the not very distant future. 



President Elliot. Now, I have a short article here from a 

 gentleman that has recently come to this country. He has had 

 only about eleven weeks of education in our country schools, and 

 here is what he says: 



HORTICULTURE AMONG THE MASSES. 

 By Gust. Malmquist, Minneapolis. 



Noticing you have this subject on the program, I wish to make a 

 few suggestions as to the best means of promoting interest in 

 horticulture among the people 



In Sweden, a good many different system have been tried with 



