Book II. EDUCATION OF GARDENERS. 1135 



Chap. II. 

 Of the Education of Gardeners. 



7719. By education is generally understood that portion of knowledge which is obtained 

 at schools ; but we shall here use the term in a somewhat more extended sense, and con- 

 sider it as the means which may be employed to render man competent for performing the 

 part which he undertakes to perform in life with increased satisfaction to himself and 

 others. Education may thus be considered as extending to everything which operates on 

 the body or mind, from the earliest period of our existence to the final extinction of life. 

 With this object in view, we shall consider in succession the professional, intellectual, 

 moral, religious, physical, and economical education of gardeners, previously submitting 

 some general remarks. 



Sect. I. On the degree of Knowledge which may be attained by Practical Men, and on the 

 General Powers of the human Mind, as to Attainments. 



7720. The knowledge of languages, history, geography, arts, sciences, and literature, 

 which a gardener daily occupied with his profession may acquire, provided he begins at 

 the commencement of his apprenticeship, and continues to employ his leisure hours in 

 reading till he is twenty or twenty-five years of age, is by no means inconsiderable : not 

 that he can, or need become learned ; but, if desirous, he may become generally intelli- 

 gent ; render himself fit, as far as conversation is concerned, for good society ; prove in- 

 structive and entertaining to others by his conversation ; and provide a reserve fund of 

 enjoyment for himself, by laying up a store of ideas for reflection in misfortune, disease, 

 or old age. 



7721. The terms knowledge and ignorance are entirely relative : the knowledge of a modern chemist's 

 porter would have subjected him to be hanged and burned in the days of the first popes ; and any brick- 

 layer's laborer who reads the London newspapers, has more correct ideas on the principles of political eco- 

 nomy than nine tenths of the nobility in Russia and Spain. It is impossible to set limits to the knowledge 

 which may be obtained by those who are destined even to the most severe and constant labor. The intel- 

 ligence of the miners in Scotland and Sweden may be referred to as proofs. The miners at Leadhills have 

 a regular library and reading society ; and the works they make choice of are not only histories, voyages, 

 travels, &c. but even works of taste, such as the British classics, and best novels and romances. The de- 

 gree to which knowledge will prevail among any class of laboring men, will depend jointly on their own am- 

 bition ; on the demand for, or reputation in which, knowledge is held ; and on the opportunities of acquiring 

 it A dull, stupid person, with little native activity, will never desire to know more than what enables him 

 to supply the ordinary wants of life. Where the workmen of any art are required to have technical know- 

 ledge of any particular kind, they will be found invariably to possess it. Thus carpenters and masons re- 

 quire some knowledge of the mechanical principles of architecture, and working engineers of the strength 

 of materials ; and these kinds of knowledge are acquired by them without an hour's interruption of their 

 daily labor : on the contrary, the habit of evening study renders them more steady, sober, and industrious 

 than other workmen ; than bricklayers and paper-hangers, for example, whose employments require much 

 less intellectual skill. If every cook-maid, before she could obtain a first-rate place, were required to be 

 able to read Apicius Redivivus in the original tongue, there would be no want of learned cooks ; and if no 

 gardener could obtain a first-rate situation who had not written a thesis in Greek, or who had not made 

 the tour of Europe, there would soon be found abundance of gardeners so qualified. A Caledonian, when 

 he comes to the low country, soon acquires the English tongue, and if he has been taught Latin, thus 

 knows three languages. The servants at the inns on some parts of the Continent, frequented by different 

 nations, often acquire a moderate knowledge of three or four languages. A late custom-house officer on the 

 island of Cronstadt spoke and wrote ten languages ; and the bar-maid, at the hotel (de Londres) at which 

 we lodged in Moskwa, in 1814, could make herself intelligible in Swedish, Russian, Polish, German, French, 

 Italian, and English. 



7722. The certain way of obtaining anything is to be impressed with the necessity of possessing it ; either to 

 avoid the evil of being without it; to satisfy the desires of others as to ourselves; or, our own desires. 

 There is scarcely anything that a rational man can desire that he may not obtain, by maintaining on his 

 mind a powerful impression of the necessity of obtaining it ; pursuing the means of attainment with un- 

 ceasing perseverance, and keeping alive that enthusiasm and ardor which always accompany powerful de- 

 sires. Even the most extravagant desires, when sufficiently powerful, are often gratified. To attain emi- 

 nence, as a literary character, natural or experimental philosopher, mathematician, divine, lawyer, or 

 physician, it is only necessary to have a powerful desire for that kind of eminence, and to apply 

 unceasingly to the subject, and to that alone. All may not acquire, by the same degree of labor, the 

 same degree of eminence ; but any man by labor may attain a knowledge of all that is already known 



Ion any subject, and that degree of knowledge is respectable ; what many never attain to, and what few 

 go beyond. 



7723. The grand drawback to every kind of improvement is the vulgar and degrading 

 idea that certain things are beyond our reach ; whereas, everything is attainable by the 

 employment of means ; and nothing, not even the knowledge of a common laborer, with- 

 out it. There are many things which it is not desirable to wish for, and which are only 

 desired by men of extraordinary minds ; but let no man fancy anything is impossible to 

 him, for this is the bane of all improvement. Let no young gardener, therefore, who 

 reads this, even if he can but barely read, imagine that he may not become eminent in 

 any of the pursuits of life or departments of knowledge, much less in that of his profes- 

 sion : let him never lose sight of this principle, — that to desire and apply is to attain, and 

 that the attainment will be in proportion to the application. 



