ESTHE TIC RESUL TS. 23 



furnished by family life ; I mean the world of feeling 

 and intellect, the world of his thoughts, of his childish 

 strivings, of his dreams of future activity. The eye and 

 heart of the child shall open here to the beauty of na- 

 ture, from the lowest steps of learning, and at the ten- 

 derest age ; the attention will be first powerfully excited 

 and fastened here ; the sense of order, purity and neat- 

 ness, the sense of poetical harmony, and the intuition 

 of beauty must here fall, fertilizing, upon the young soft 

 soul. Here the interest in the manifestations, charms, 

 and treasures of home nature may be awakened, in- 

 creased and refined ; and here the cherishing and spir- 

 itual power of insight can be reached. The pleasure of 

 observing carefully and quietly must be sharpened, in 

 order that the child may reflect upon what is seen, that 

 he may find the connection between effect and cause ; 

 and here the faculty of sifting and rearranging the man- 

 ifold forms and changing appearances of nature, will be 

 cultivated. But clearness of representation is the first 

 condition for the intellectual work of human life. The 

 school garden will be peculiarly a school of correct and 

 specific judgment, of circumspect reflection, a fountain 

 of the purest and most innocent joys of children and 

 youth, a communion with nature. 



ESTHETIC RESULTS. 



Can these educating results cease during life ? Must 

 not all the children so trained remain friends of the trees 

 and the flowers they loved ; and, therefore, will they not 

 be the friends of nature, and on the way to be good men ? 

 Will not the destroyer of trees and the tormentor of 

 animals cease in the earth ? Will not the life-long effects 

 of the pleasures enjoyed in the beauty of creation, and 



