HOUTICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN. 169 



public schools, by the Board of Supervisors, and now, one thing 

 more should be advocated by educationists and agriculturists^ 

 combined, the Swedish school garden. 



The Swedes realize that, for the purposes of observation, 

 nature is better than pictures ; and plants, growing under natural 

 conditions, and visited bj' the birds and insects peculiar to them, 

 are better than descriptions in books ; and, if we would have our 

 schools as excellent as theirs, and do something to brighten the 

 prospect for agriculture, we should introduce the school garden 

 into our system of education. 



"When we compare our sj^stem of education with the system 

 commonly found in European countries, we cannot fail to see how 

 much better balanced the European systems are than ours. Sa 

 in the great jubilees of twenty years ago, we found every foreign 

 band better balanced than any band we could produce. Every 

 educational expert who examiues the systems of education in 

 Europe confesses that we are far behind European schools ia 

 science, art, music, and physical, industrial, and agricultural 

 education. 



The school garden should be not only a place for observation, 

 but a field for experimentation. Budding, grafting, propagation 

 b}' layers, cuttings, and slips, cross-fertilization, aud the condi- 

 tions favorable to plant growth could be taught experimentally, 

 not to one class necessarily, but to every pupil somewhere in the 

 course of study. Seeing and doing such things and recording the 

 results, would give pupils a training peculiarly valuable. Here is 

 a large field for the consideration of those who would send the 

 whole boy to school. Here is an efficient means of interesting 

 him. A lively personal interest is the mainspring of all proper 

 mental development. Unless the boy is interested in the work of 

 the school room, his mind will be on things outside of it ; he will 

 be present in body but absent in mind. How is it that the varied,, 

 instructive, and interesting work of the school garden has escaped 

 the attention and appreciation of educators so long, — much more 

 the appreciation and attention of agriculturists ? 



In the public schools of Boston, two hours a week are set apart 

 for elementary science work, in all the primary classes and in the 

 fifth and sixth grammar classes. Out-door work at all seasonable 

 times should be substituted for the present in-door work. Work 

 in the school garden would be as much better than work on the 

 same material in the school room, as a visit to Paris is better than 



