174 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



heavens seek and impart instruction. With the assistance, which 

 dame Nature never refuses, what may we not expect from the 

 coming generation of horticulturists ?" 



Modern educators have risen above the traditional theoretical 

 and authoritative education, resulting from the study of books 

 alone, and now demand a symmetrical education for children. 

 That is an admirable purpose ; but even the most advanced of 

 those educators in this country have gone no farther than to 

 provide for such an education as can be given under a roof, in a 

 school building or in a shop for industrial training. I submit 

 this question to the great body of agriculturists, out-door workers 

 generall}^ and all other competent authorities : Can a symmetri- 

 cal, or wholly healthful, education be given entirely under cover, 

 and away from the light, the fresh air, the invigorating sunshine^ 

 and the smell of earth, and her exquisite productions? 



The " Journal of Health" contains this remarkable statement : 

 "Patients strolling on the sea-shore, in sunny weather, are in a 

 light, not two or three times, but eighteen thousand times, 

 stronger than that in the ordinarj' shaded and curtained rooms of 

 a city house ; and the same patients walking along the sunny side 

 of a street are receiving more than five thousand times as much of 

 the health-giving influence of light, as they would receive in-doors, 

 in the usually heavily-curtained rooms." As regards health- 

 giving light and air, the school garden is a thousand times better 

 than the school room. 



What can horticultural societies do to enable children to receive 

 instruction in horticulture? They have not the point of vantage, 

 to give direct instruction as the common schools have, but they 

 can influence instruction, if they choose. Among the members 

 are persons excellently fitted by education and experience in 

 agriculture, to set forth clearly the commercial value of a knowl- 

 edge of it, and the training of the powers of observation and 

 other mental faculties, in the process of acquiring that knowledge. 

 They ought to be represented in school committees everywhere, 

 as well as the lawyers, the doctors, and the ministers, who always 

 influence education in the direction of the learned professions, — 

 never in the interests of agriculture. 



Consider what studies have been introduced into the common 

 school curriculum within a comparatively few years, — sewing, 

 cooking, manual training for boys, kindergartens, and various 



