THE STUDY OF HORTICULTURE FN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 123 



Starting from the general abstract idea, plants adds to it the ideas 

 of class peculiarities in order — the process of the botanist in 

 classification — the process is one of ideal synthesis. 



This sketch covers in outline the field of intellectual education, 

 and an educational system must supply the appropriate subject for 

 each of these classes of mental exercise. All are essential to 

 complete culture, and each has its appropriate place and peculiar 

 efficiency. Every mind must start with the real, and most will 

 find here their appropriate field of exercise. Only philosophers 

 and scientists work easily in the the ideal region, and it has been 

 the bane of our education that abstractions have for so long ruled 

 the field, and have been the main exercise of minds but poorly 

 prepared to deal with them. 



If it were enough to study one branch of science, if the object 

 were merely to illustrate a process of thought, the work of the 

 teacher would be simple indeed, and the years of study might be 

 few. It does not require argument to prove that the study of all 

 the forces acting through matter is essential to anything like com- 

 plete culture ; hence the divisions of physics according to the forces 

 considered. In addition to the physical forces, vital forces, as 

 acting in plant and animal, must be studied for essential 

 knowledge and also for discipline. The predominance, in our 

 courses of study, of the study of the animal organism, is 

 probably due to the interest excited by the evolution theory. 

 There are apparently insuperable obstacles to the general teaching 

 •of this department of biology in the common school. It requires 

 a training and skill bej^ond the reach of most teachers ; the subject 

 in some of its aspects is repulsive to many children, and the 

 study of the processes and laws of the development of animal 

 life is often unfit and impossible for the child. The knowledge 

 of facts alone, however interesting and important in themselves, 

 is not science, which must always sweep full circle. The astron- 

 omer studies the laws of planetary motion by comparing the 

 ■observations of past centuries with his own. The geologist 

 deduces the laws of his science from comparison of stone records 

 reaching through the vast periods of geologic time ; the biologist 

 traces the laws of animal development through successive genera- 

 tions. In the study of the plant the circuit of development may 

 be complete in one season ; modifications are easily produced and 

 observed, and the subject is at all times and stages beautiful. 



