HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN. 175 



modifications and better adaptations of every branch of study. 

 Kindness to animals has been advocated in all the schools of the 

 commonwealth ; the temperance people have had a compulsory 

 school law passed ; in Boston an instructor in hygiene has been 

 employed for some years ; the entering wedge of the Sloyd system 

 of manual training has been admitted ; a mighty conference of 

 the leading spirits in physical training has been held in Hunting- 

 ton Hall, and the representatives of various religious denomina- 

 tions have waged a war of words concerning the teaching of 

 historj' and religion in the schools. Among all these things 

 advocated there has been no suggestion of agriculture, but during 

 their advocacy much has been said about sending the whole hoy to 

 school, when apparently what the whole boy is has not been 

 determined. His earthly part, or rather his relation to the earth, 

 has been entirely left out. 



Even among educators and school committees, the prevailing 

 idea of a proper education is shaped from consideration of trade. 

 In the Report of the School Committee of Boston, for 1889, we 

 read : " Those who are compelled to end their school life with the 

 High Schools, are furnished with a sound, practical education, 

 which enables them to enter mercantile and commercial occupa- 

 tions." This new method fails to recognize the great relative 

 importance of our agricultural interests. 



The Secretary of Agriculture in his report for 1889, says : "It 

 may be broadly stated that upon the productiveness of our agri- 

 culture, and the prosperity of our farmers, the entire wealth and 

 prosperity of the whole nation depend." Nevertheless, this great 

 industry, that enters so largely and intimately into the life of the 

 nation, has been an unknown quantity in our schools, as if the 

 mainspring of all our national prosperitj', would in some way 

 take care of itself, in spite of the untoward influences of our 

 schools. Is every line of work, except that connected with the 

 earth, to be considered as holding the indispensable principles of 

 education, while the study of the natural products of the earth, 

 the source of all practical ideas and all material wealth, is to be 

 considered of no special importance, in training a child for life? 



A large majority of our public schools have done little or noth- 

 ing in the study of plants, insects, minerals, and soils, although 

 expected to do so, alleging that such study is not practical ; but 

 the conning of books, and the figuring on slates, they claim to be 



