HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN. 159 



MEETING FOR DISCUSSION. 

 Horticultural Education for Children. 



By Hexry L. Clapp, Principal of the George Putnam School, Roxbury. 



In the paper which I am about to read I shall touch upon the 

 following points : 



1. Children's natural love for digging in the earth. 



2. Why they lose that love. 



3. The abandonment of farms. 



4. The unfortunate results of our unbalanced system of educa- 

 tion, in creating an overwhelming surplus of middlemen. 



5. Studies that alienate scholars from Nature. 



6. The influence of our text-books. 



7. The need of scientific farming in the United States. 



8. Some results of scientific farming. 



9. School-gardens in Europe. 



10. Results of instruction in school-gardens. 



11. The introduction of school-gardens into our system of 

 education. 



12. What they should contain. 



13. Their effect on the health of city children. 



14. What horticultural socities can -do to aid children in getting 

 horticultural instruction. 



15. The best educational impulses in this country come from 

 private individuals and private institutions. 



The child that does not like to dig in the ground is an excep- 

 tional one. We see the children of the rich spending their 

 vacations in digging in the sands of the sea-shore ; we see the 

 children of the poor in the country digging caves in sand banks, 

 making mud huts over their naked feet, and building dams for 

 miniature mill-ponds. 



Not unfrequently we come across a child's flower garden, 

 carelessh' cultivated, but strongly characteristic of childhood. 

 Children take to earth as naturally as goslings take to water, and 

 their liking for flowers is hardly less marked. 



Why is it that so large a proportion of them grow away from 

 such amusements soon after the}* begin school life? Why are 

 most of our pupils so intent on getting into an office or a store, as 



