64 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



visit the house and look it over, take in the outside appearance, 

 pass in review the things in the different rooms. We have 

 learned the house at a glance, almost unconsciously, almost with- 

 out effort. It would have taken us days, possibly weeks, to 

 learn so much about it by the symbolical method. Further than 

 this our book knowledge, as we have it in mind before coming 

 to the house, may prove an absolute incumbrance, from the 

 fact that there would be a constant tendency to refer things to 

 the book. For instance, we would be repeating, "The book 

 says, 'Five feet from the front door there is a window, four feet 

 from the ground, with twelve panes of glass.' Oh yes ! that is 

 the window," when at a glance we have seen it and taken it all 

 in. Most of this is a waste of time. This illustration is not so 

 different from the case of a child who is under the necessity of 

 learning something of the world about, him, and my only reason 

 for presenting it to you is to raise the query, whether elemen- 

 tary education might not be made more substantial by continuing 

 as long as possible in the natural method of learning. But we 

 must bear in mind that we cannot go far without the use of 

 symbols. When things become too numerous and cumbersome 

 for easy manipulation, then the mind will naturally come to sub- 

 stitute the word and symbol, and these by reason of long past 

 experience will have about them the quality of reality. 



An important feature of the natural education of the child is 

 that it is so largely active rather than passive. He learns by 

 acting, doing, and trying to do all manner of things. In uni- 

 versities and higher schools, we are returning to this method of 

 childhood in the laboratory courses, and in the manual training 

 and cooking ; and at the other end of our educational scale, we 

 are trying to realize its ideal in the occupations of the kinder- 

 garten. The great movement at present is towards drawing out 

 the best activities of the child, and we need this throughout the 

 grades from the kindergarten to the college. As Dr. Burnham 

 has expressed it, " The great maxim of modern reform in edu- 

 cation is the activity of the pupil instead of the didactics of the 

 teacher." You see from this what I mean when I say that the 

 Worcester County Horticultural Society has been an educational 



