192 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



could win over public opinion in favor of the movement, it was not an 

 easy matter to find such an enthusiast or such a teacher to carry out this 

 work, and we ventured to suggest that" the state of Massachusetts might 

 better spend some of its money in the establishment in all our normal 

 schools of departments or at least courses for the training of our teaching 

 forces along these lines. Some of this work is done at some of the normal 

 schools, but in few is it done in such a way as to really inspire enthusiasm 

 on the part of the graduates ov a broad understanding of the aim and 

 policy and general purpose of such a movement. It is too often touched 

 so lightly that the graduate fs not prepared to even introduce the work; 

 is not prepared to help mold public sentiment; is not prepared to over- 

 come the obstacles which are bound to appear. My contention is that the 

 state can well afford for many reasons to create such departments in the 

 normal schools and to make them of such interest and importance that 

 some of the teachers at least will be capable and anxious as they go out 

 into the rural and village schools to develop a more intelligent interest^ 

 a more generous attitude toward rural conditions, and a better knowledge 

 of the possibilities and enjoyments of non-urban life. I say the state can 

 better afford to do this than afford many other expenditures which will 

 bring fewer returns. It has been said that the public school should aim 

 to produce best men, best women; if you please, the best citizens possible. 

 In a democracy the chief care of the state is to improve and train its 

 members who are the foundation of the republic. I have often asserted 

 that the home and the family is the most potent and effective unit in our 

 social and political life, and it is the improvement of our homes and the 

 consequent love of home which the children's garden movement engenders, 

 that is to bring about the rewards for whatever is put into this movement. 

 I may have mentioned in your presence before, that there will be no lack 

 of patriotism, genuine patriotism, on the part of the people who have 

 homes which they love and which they would be willing to defend at any 

 cost. 



I am impressed with the fact that thousands and thousands of dollars 

 are expended by the state for immense armories and military equipment 

 and expenses with all their pomp and glitter, and at the same time I think 

 of these armories as being used only infrequently by a few. We can recall 

 that the very l)est fighting and the very best defense that has ever been 

 made was not done by the trained and richly equipped red-coats of Great 

 Britain, but by the embattled farmers and home lovers of Charlestown 

 and Boston and Bunker Hill. As our late lamented Senator Hoar once 

 said, " Times were when men were proud to strike for their altars and 

 their fires, but you hear very little of men striking for their flats and, 

 furnaces." The men who will be most anxious to defend their country 

 the men who will be most patriotic to stamp out the evils of city corrui)tion 

 and commercial crime, will not be the men who frequent the crowded 

 cities and factories, who live like cliff dwellers in the high apartments of 

 our great cities, but it will be the sturdy, home loving, patriotic citizen 



