The Canadian Horticulturist. 



i57 



HORTICULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



( HE fact, that by far the largest interests of our province are agri- 

 cultural, is of itself sufficient reason for giving agricultural subjects 

 prominence in a rural school course ; but when we consider the 

 practically indefinite expansion of which they are capable, it 

 becomes a matter of natural importance that something should be 

 ;T>|fe done to bend the inclinations and direct the energies of a larger 

 %5vr> proportion of the population towards them. Not only is there a 

 T^v/f^, distaste for these pursuits, as shown by the disproportionate 

 (jy g> -, growth of urban population, but there is a lamentable ignorance 

 ~ * of the scientific principles on which they rest. Among the many 

 agencies to which we may look for improvment, none possess more advantages 

 than the public schools, and horticulture presents the readiest means of introduc- 

 ing agricultural subjects in these schools. There is not a family represented that 

 has not at least a small garden, so that many of the facts and theories of a class 

 lesson could be verified or tested immediately by the pupils with little trouble 

 and no expense. The material for the practical study of plant is always at hand. 

 Horticultural subjects can be taken with pupils of all ages, along the lines of the 

 most approved modern methods of teaching without disturbing the ordinary school 

 work in the least. Indeed, natural science cannot well be introduced in primary 

 schools except through the study of plants and their modes of growth. Any pupil 

 who is old enough to notice the difference between a leaf and a root, or that a 

 plant droops when pulled from the ground and revives again when placed in water, 

 is old enough to begin the study of plants ; and no pupil is so far advanced that he 

 does not find something to interest him in even a limited garden. 



As a mental discipline, quite apart from its practical side, this subject would 

 have as much value as any on the course, and in point of interest is much beyond 

 many of them. I have seen a high school class of boys and girls, partly from the 

 town and partly from the country, listen as they would to a fairy tale while their 

 teacher told the story of the common red clover and its relation to other crops 

 on the farm. 



But the difficulty lies rather with the teacher ; unless he has an appreciation 

 of the importance of the subject, and a living iuterest in it, I fear little progress 

 would be made. Many of our teachers are young girls who, in addition to their 

 intellectual immaturity, are supposed to have no interest in the theory and prac- 

 tice of horticulture, and possibly for that reason none. A large portion of the 

 male teachers are from the country, but they too often think of the garden only 

 as a place where they were forced to toil evenings after they had already done a 

 fair day's work in the fields. The case, however, is not altogether hopeless. 



