164 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETr. 



Business men have complained through the newspapers and in 

 many other ways, that the graduates of our schools are not pre- 

 pared to take up the elementarj* stages of then- business, nor to 

 put on at once the habits of business men. Why should they be 

 especiall}' so prepared? Why have no similar complaints come 

 from agriculturists, or manufacturers? Our schools should not be 

 run in the interests of trade, any more than in the interests of 

 agriculture or manufactures. The fact that they have been so 

 run, makes them largely responsible for the unfortunate condition 

 of affairs, to which reference has been made. In Europe, the 

 schools are managed better. The principles of trade, mechanics, 

 and agriculture, all come in for a fair share of school time ; conse- 

 quently the children are skilful workers as well as intelligent 

 scholars. "-Faith without works is dead." Books without works 

 are no better. In view of what has been said it appears that a 

 change in our system of education is of vital importance to agri- 

 culture, at least, if not to the best education of our children, and 

 the highest prosperity and happiness of the nation. It is time to 

 inculcate the dignity of manual laljor, in the common schools, to 

 teach children the value of propertj' by making them work for it, 

 to establish schools for manual training, and to give school child- 

 ren a piece of ground for observation, experiment, and work. 



The introduction of horticulture into the common schools will 

 do much to counteract those baneful influences that have been 

 mentioned ; it will create that respect for, and intelligent appre- 

 ciation of, the cultivation of the soil, that is desirable ; it will 

 check the tendency to abandon the farm as soon as possible, if 

 any educational means can ; it will create a first love, to return to 

 at a later period of life ; and it will lead to a real demand for 

 agricultural schools of a high grade. To expect agricultural 

 colleges to flourish without feeders, is chimerical. Agricultural 

 colleges and scientiflc farming on a large scale must start from 

 plenty of seeds, planted in good soil and in the spring-time of 

 life. The common schools, in an eminent degree, have the points 

 of vantage for the prosecution of this work and there is need 

 enough of scientific farming. 



The "Boston Evening Transcript," of November 16, 1889, has 

 the following comments on agriculture in America : 



"There is no use in denying that our American agriculture is 

 in a very primitive condition in all except the item of machinery. 



