1898.] ESSAYS. 65 



institution, a true college of horticulture of the best type. From 

 the first foundation in the early forties to the 1897 report of 

 Secretary Lincoln, saturating every report, permeating every 

 exhibit, is that clear educational purpose to '^^ advance the science 

 and to- encourage and improve the practice of horticulture." 

 Thus knowledge and action have gone from the first hand in hand 

 as they always should. Socrates and Plato taught as a founda- 

 tion for all educational systems that knowledge is the first step 

 toward virtue, and the doing of knowledge is its perfection. 

 And if we could have this kind of education, the kind of educa- 

 tion that the Worcester County Horticultural Society has been 

 standing for all these years with relation to the subject which 

 it teaches, permeating the population of our city, we might have 

 less of this flimsy style of education that serves to unfit so many 

 for real efficiency and the best enjoyment of life. 



To what extent the Society has had in mind active co-operation 

 with the public schools, I am unable to say ; many of you could 

 speak more to the point on that subject. I could, however, 

 quote many instances where such relations are hinted at. "Your 

 Secretary," says the Transactions of 1897, "would put his faith 

 in the Common rather than the High School, where both cannot 

 be had. He would educate the mass, at public expense, instead 

 of a class. He would ^Advance the Science and improve the 

 Practice of Horticulture' so that each family, in possession of its 

 own homestead, should lea7m ho7v best to cultivate its ai'ea, how- 

 ever contracted." 



In an earlier report he also reminds the Society : " Our older 

 members are rapidly passing away ; is there promise that their 

 places will be filled? Certainly there can be no hope of it from 

 a county which, save in title, has ceased to maintain any distinct- 

 ive connection with the Society. But looking straight ahead, 

 what reasonable prospect is there of keeping up — let alone ad- 

 vancing — the position and repute of the Society in Floriculture ?" 

 We also read in our own Transactions : ' ' The highest mission of 

 the Horticultural Society is to lend its strongest influence to the 

 educating of children to a love of flowers which will lead them 

 to be willing to give time and labor for their cultivation." 



