TIIK STUDY or lIOKTltULTlKK IN I'lBLIC SCllOULS. 131 



Although wide districts of our country have been occupied for 

 generations by farmers and their families, mau}' of these dwellers 

 in the midst of our uiost beautiful, and even grand scenery, have been 

 quite unaware that it possesses such characteristics. A cultivated 

 citizen of Philadelphia discovered North Conway, and his an- 

 nouncement of its charms led to its becoming a fashionable 

 resort for summer boarders. A party of summer tourists wander- 

 ing over the White Mountain district noticed at one homestead 

 that the barn was so placed as to completely prevent the house 

 from coumianding a view of Mount Washington. The farmer, 

 on being asked why his barn was thus located, replied: "When 

 that barn was built Mount Washington hadn't been discovered." 

 The cultivation, in the rising generation, of appreciation of the 

 beautiful in Nature and art would add greatly to their capacity to 

 perform better work in every vocation, especially rural, as well as 

 to their ability to see and enjoy the charms, not only of fine produc- 

 tions of art, and of beautiful and grand scenery, but of all created 

 things. Furthermore, their development in this direction would 

 exert a reflex influence upon the present generation and thus 

 increase the happiness of the Avhole race. 



We read in the beginning of the divine record that God planted' 

 a garden eastward in P^den, — and that he placed man therein to 

 keep and to dress it. On the cross the Saviour of mankind said 

 to the penitent, "This day shalt thou be- with me in Paradise," — 

 a pleasure garden. Were there more gardens along the way, the 

 course through this world to a beautiful hereafter would be 

 straighter and smoother. 



Dr. Rounds remarked during his lecture that by the exten- 

 sion of courses of instruction in natural science to young women,, 

 the fact has been recognized that it is a study entirely appro- 

 priate for them. 



It is remarkable that, so far as he knows, farming and garden- 

 ing are the only occupations carried on for fun. Wealthy men go 

 back to their homes or farms in the country and spend money 

 for beauty, but merchants and teachers do not go back to their 

 occupations. 



If we take a piece of natural scenery and work it up by the aid 

 of man and it is controlled by man, a new life is given it. 



Whatever may be said in the city we know that in times of 

 trouble help is sought from the country. Solitude makes a coun- 



