3 io Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



its observance has been in the development of a love for 

 Nature and her wonderful works, and the encouragement to 

 the delightful study of trees, plants, flowers and birds. There 

 is no doubt that in hundreds of thousands of the children of 

 our country there has been awakened a deep interest in the 

 atractive study of how plants grow, of the use and abuse of 

 trees, and of the relation which birds and flowers bear to 

 the problem of Nature and to human happiness.' 



"Indiana is noted, perhaps, more for the excellence of her 

 school system and schools than any other thing. The pre- 

 eminent standing of these has been brought about by an evo- 

 lution, ranging through three quarters of a century. Fewer 

 than half a dozen of the primitive log school-houses are now 

 standing. The original plan embodied the idea of a center of 

 higher learning in each county, and for that purpose county 

 seminaries were built. These have disappeared with the log 

 school-houses. We now are upon the threshold of centers of 

 higher learning in each township, and this is well. Our 

 most excellent State Superintendent of Public Instruction, as 

 I understand it, advocates the abolition of many of the country 

 schools, the building of larger school-houses and carrying the 

 children to them in public conveyances. This means an op- 

 portunity for better buildings, better teachers, better grading 

 of the pupils, better facilities for teaching and better scholar- 

 ship. The plan ought to have the hearty support of every well 

 wishing citizen of the State. 



"In a notable address delivered lately by our progressive 

 Governor in the State of Illinois, he advocated the teaching of 

 agriculture and horticulture in our common schools. And why 

 not? There are nearly 8,000 school gardens in Austria. In 

 France there are nearly 30,000 of them, and the minister of 

 public instruction has resolved that no one shall be appointed 

 master of an elementary school unless he can give practical 

 instruction in the culture of mother earth. In 1871, 22,000 

 children were receiving instruction in horticulture and tree 

 planting in Sweden, and each of more than 2,000 schools had 

 for cultivation from one to twelve acres of ground. Why 

 should we be behind the Old World in caring for our 

 schools? 



