WORCESTER SOCIETY. 211 



room. Why should not our New England schools, so justly 

 our pride, so truly our defence, impress young minds v/ith a 

 taste for cultivating fruits and flowers ? Does not the very lo- 

 cation of our schoolhouses near old pastures, or neglected or- 

 chards, or under forest glooms, or beside grave-yards, or, at best, 

 in the most retired and useless spot in our villages, tend to dis- 

 gust young minds with every thing connected with farming, 

 and lead to an early wish to migrate and become any thing but 

 farmers. Our Maker has given children a taste for the beauti- 

 ful. He has given to cultivators of the soil the power of ren- 

 dering their fields, and orchards, and gardens beautiful, without 

 detracting from their profits. Still, the farmer rarely thinks of 

 any thing but profit, and regards attention to taste as so much 

 wasted eff"orl. '^ Flowers," said one of Hodge's descendants, 

 " Flowers are curses, young gals will stick 'em into the ground, 

 and afore they are big enough to make butter or weed onions, 

 the paltry yellow and red, and speckled blossoms will be pep- 

 pered like Canada thistles, all over the garden patch, and whole 

 home lot." But Hodge, with all his hostility to flowers, does 

 not receive larger profits than his neighbor, whose grapery and 

 tomato-bed, and fowl-yard, and hive-house, increase his cash as 

 much as they add to the beauty of his premises, although their 

 mutual arrangement amid roses and dahlias have the appear- 

 ance of a mere pleasure garden. Hodge will have to look for 

 his children, bye-and-bye in some city, while the latter family 

 mentioned will only have remained, like the people of the 

 apiary, to occupy and adorn contiguous homes, and give to the 

 whole neighborhood the aspect and fragrance which enchanted 

 their young years. When we look at the utter want of regard 

 to the idea of rendering agriculture attractive in our common 

 school arrangements, we must cease to wonder that there is so 

 much migration from our favored State. We call it the spirit 

 of adventure. Is it not, in part at least, the spirit of disgust ? 

 How then shall a change be brought about ? It must be the 

 work of time, whatever plan may be adopted. Several distinct 

 points are to be gained. Some of these will be reached by the 

 persevering application of measures now employed. For others, 

 new means are demanded. What is now being done to arouse 



