HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN. 181 



schools are of transcendent importance. But there is a great 

 power behind them ; the home, the parents. He would have 

 fathers and mothers brought to think on this subject. The first 

 thing for us to consider is the proper development of the powers 

 of mind which in the children are latent. We should begin with 

 the home as the source of the greatest influence. Mothers come 

 here to see the flowers and plants that are brought in for exhibi- 

 tion. They receive the divine influence which flows from the 

 beaut}' and fragrance of these choice productions, and that influ- 

 ence is more or less reflected in their homes. He remembered the 

 feelings with which he contemplated the first flowers he saw at his 

 early home. It is an irreparable loss to a child not to have a 

 true home-life to look back upon in after years. He wished our 

 people of New England to consider this matter, and to devise the 

 best possible methods of teaching their children, by which they 

 shall become attached to the soil. Where practicable, every child 

 should have a spot of ground to till with his own hands. He was 

 desirous that this Societj' should use its influence to propagate the 

 idea he had tried to express. If by any means parents could be 

 brought to co-operate with teachers in the education of their chil- 

 dren in this work, it would 3'ear by year be steadily and surely 

 accomplished. 



Rev. Calvin Terry spoke of the gratification the essay had 

 afforded him ; of the great importance of the subject ; of the prin- 

 ciples which lie at the foundation of all good education, which de- 

 velops the tendencies to make good citizens of the children trained 

 in our schools. He spoke of the contrast between the school facil- 

 ities or machinery of education of half a centur}^ or more ago, and 

 those of today ; quoting Beecher's description of the district 

 school house of the early days, which was built wherever it could 

 be placed without much expense, and, on the same principle, fin- 

 ished and furnished in the plainest manner. It was destitute of 

 any hint of ornament and of all illustrative apparatus. Now, we 

 must have the most costly edifices and all needful appliances to 

 make school life a joui'ne}' of delight. He did not object to the 

 present appliances. Perhaps we have gone to the other extreme. 

 Children go into the primary hopper and are ground out as gram- 

 mar or high-school graduates. Our schools are now run on the 

 high-pressure system, which is proriaoted by the rivalry between 

 the schools of each town, and also between those of one town and 



