226 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



many hours in a mouth which might have sought in vain for an 

 equal amount of valuable manlj' recreation elsewhere. 



Consider how much more happily- adapted to the development 

 of a man, and to qualify him for a contest with the difficulties 

 which ever}' young man is to meet, was this simple training than 

 the pastimes now popular with young men in our more modern 

 schools and seminaries of learning. Here was the work of the 

 gymnasium, the boat race, the base ball game, all combined in a har- 

 monious, useful, natural, and attractive form, and exempt from 

 the peril of broken limbs which attends the rivalries of the gym- 

 nasium ; of useless straining of muscles which belongs to training 

 for boat races ; and of broken noses, fingers, and thumbs which 

 uniformly attaches to contests of base ball. 



From the gymnasium, the boat race, and the ball game there 

 may indeed be acquired some ph38ical training, afiording partial 

 compensation for the abnormal risks entered into ; but in the cul- 

 ture of that little patch of soil there was always gained not only 

 the delightful vigor which comes from out-door recreation, but a 

 mental training enabling the student mind in after j'ears to grasp 

 the problem of life — already more than half solved in his early 

 work upon the school garden. 



It goes without saying, and need not be demonstrated by logic 

 or illustrated by figures of speech, that there is physical energy 

 enough wasted every season by the students of Harvard College 

 to carry on a truck garden which would supply very largely the 

 vegetable markets of the cit}- of Boston. And would not such 

 productive labor be better for the students in preparing them phy- 

 sically, menlall}', and morally for the great work which all schools 

 and universities are founded to carry 'on? 



What better is it for the young man that he is a skilled puller 

 at the oar, or a quick catcher of a ball? The answer is not appar- 

 ent. But when it is asked what better is it for the young man 

 that he has spaded and pulverized the soil, mixed the fertilizer, 

 planted the seed, watched the early shoot, lought with great hero- 

 ism and success weeds and worms and insects, produced and mar- 

 keted a crop — you need not wait to frame a reply, for the answer 

 is ready at your tongue's end and everybody at once acknowl- 

 edges its truth. 



Not that I would confine recreation for the young men solely to 

 that obtained in work. With us at the school there were hours 



