50 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of his life, and the Jesuits say that if they can have the education 

 of a child until he is seven years old they do not care who teaches 

 him afterwards. Indeed the permanence of early impressions has 

 become a proverb. "We cannot then begin too early to establish 

 right conceptions of moral and natural beauty in the hearts of the 

 young. 



How little has been done to educate the young by rendering 

 their school surroundings beautiful and attractive. In how many 

 school yards you cannot find a tree, vine, or shrub, or even a 

 perfect blade of giass — the surface when wet, mud ; when dry, 

 dust ; lacking the conveniences required for comfort, and in some 

 cases for decency and good morals. 



Let us now turn from what is to what ought to be. Every 

 school-house should have ample space around it for light and 

 ventilation, for exercise and for beaut}^ Children have an 

 inalienable right to enough space to insure health, happiness, and 

 physical development. 



Even in cities, where the cost of land is great, it would be far 

 wiser, if economy must be practised, to diminish the superfluous 

 ornamentation of the houses and to increase the size and beauty 

 of the school grounds. Man}' of the school-houses in this city 

 would be far more attractive had they been properly located and 

 had a few dollars been expended in planting trees and shrubs 

 about them and improving the lines of approach. To have taken 

 a few acres of our vast and expensive parks, so located as to be 

 inaccessible to ten thousand of our school children, and sub- 

 divided and added them to our school grounds would have been 

 an act of wisdom. But I would have both parks and sufficient 

 school grounds. Our 3'outh, to whom play is as natural as 

 breathing, are daily more and more circumscribed and restricted. 



The opportunities for ball-playing, coasting, skating, and, 

 indeed, every form of active, vigorous amusement, are rapidly 

 diminishing. Our youth are unable to engage in physical labor as 

 can country children, and time hangs heavy on their hands. The 

 vast throngs that crowd the five-cent and ten-cent museums, to 

 witness the most disgusting and corrupting displays, do so at 

 first, because they have no better way to occupy' their leisure 

 hours. The recent words of the school committee man who, in 

 reply to the charge of lavish expenditure for schools, declared that 

 " a child is at least as valuable as a paving stone," deserve 

 immortality. 



