loth February, A. D. 1898. 



ESSAY 



BY 



C. F. HODGE, Ph.D., 



Or Clark University, Worcester, Mass. 



Theme : — Horticultural Interests in Relation to Public Education, 



Mr. President and Members of the Society : — Personally, I 

 should very much prefer to hear a discussion from the members 

 of the Society on the relations between horticultural interests 

 and education, than to try to tell you anything about them my- 

 self, and I hope that we may have a discussion of the subject 

 which may be of great value to myself and to the city at large. 

 I am, however, encouraged to take up this subject by the fact 

 that in reading over the reports of the Society, as I always have 

 from year to year, it has seemed to me that I am not bringing 

 forward anything that flavors of innovation. The Society has 

 certainly fought a good tight for over fifty years, and in all that 

 time the sole purpose and aim has seemed to be purely and 

 simply educational. It has existed strictly as an educational 

 institution, a veritable college of horticulture, in the very best 

 sense of the word. 



I hope the country is now waking up to the fiict that there are 

 different kinds of education, good, indifferent and bad; and 

 very different qualities of knowledge in consequence of different 

 methods by which we educate. For this we have the luminous 

 discriminations in Holy Writ between the " knowledge that 

 puffeth up " and " the excellency of knowledge that giveth life," 

 " knowledge that is to be desired rather than choice gold" and 

 knowledge of which Isaiah says, " Thy wisdom and thy knowl- 



