128 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



For ph3'sical traiuiug iu school, Boston has adopted the Swedish 

 system as the best ; aud the name of kindergarten, and of its 

 author, Froebel, alike show its origin. Until America can show 

 one important contribution of its own, there should be no objec- 

 tion to the adoption of one more educational feature from abroad. 



The economic advantages have been briefly stated iu the French 

 report from which I have quoted. 



The physical advantages in furnishing relief from the stress and 

 strain aud a remedy for the dangers of school life aud work, as 

 well as of sedentary occupations, are patent. Like advantages 

 may be expected from the furnishing of needed changes in the 

 food aud hours and habits of life, of many of our people. One 

 advantage of the study of horticulture iu our schools would be 

 that it might change the hours of the active life of each day, even 

 in our cities, by substituting morning hours for those of the late 

 evening. On a larger field the benefit would be felt, in its trans- 

 formation, in some important respects, of the character of country 

 life. 



The transference of population from country to cit}' is one of 

 the most marked characteristics of modern civilization. Accord- 

 ing to the last United States census the urban population of 

 Massachusetts is, as before remarked, now seventy per ceut of the 

 total. Many of our States are apprehensive of their future in 

 view of the large and increasing number of abandoned farms. 

 Often sadder thau the abandoned farm are the abandoned parents 

 who are going down to death alone on the old place. It is b}' no 

 meaus always true that the children who have gone from country 

 to cit}' have bettered their fortunes by the removal ; too often they 

 have bankrupted fortune and morals alike. Yet flight was and is 

 inevitable, — it is an instinctive attempt to save the soul alive. 

 To the bright boy and girl on the country farm comes day by day 

 wonderful music from the wondrous world beyond the horizon's 

 bar. In former days the lumbering stage coach brought news — 

 a little — from abroad, as it had slowly travelled the length of the 

 land aud been slowly wafted across the seas. Now the express 

 train, the ocean racer, and the magic wire over the mountains and 

 under the seas, make the whole world kin, and iuflame the 

 imagination of the youthful watchers iu the valley and on the 

 hillside. The magazine comes with its reproductions of art, aud 

 its revelations of the beauty which cities have to show. The 



