40 THE SCHOOL GARDEN. 



a beehive and a bee keeper (Bienenvater) be given to 

 the best scholar, as they do in German Bohemia, and 

 the certain propaganda is sure and rapid. 



A GLIMPSE INTO MINERALOGY. 



The school garden, which is apparently only for the 

 cultivation of plants, but which really offers muchma- 

 terial for instruction in the animal kingdom, and illus* 

 trates the interchanging relations between the vegetable 

 and animal kingdoms, stands also in close relation to 

 many parts of the mineral kingdom, which can have but 

 limited attention in the public school. Since the in- 

 struction in all branches must be brought into the most 

 intimate relation with each other, it can also take into 

 view the allied branches of natural science. Here par- 

 ticularly comes in the agricultural science of the soil 

 which treats of its composition, varieties, trial and im- 

 provement. The ground principles of physics and 

 chemistry belong to this instruction in natural history, 

 and are quite comprehensible by the younger village 

 children, but will be best understood when they find 

 concrete application. The different branches of natural 

 science taught in the practical garden of the boys may 

 be indicated by various topics. The origin of the humus 

 in the ground by the decomposition of plants and of 

 animal secretions and remains, whence are developed 

 carbonic acid and ammonia ; the absorbing of the car- 

 bonic acid from the moist soil by the roots of plants, 

 and from the atmosphere by the pores (or lungs) of 

 the leaves ; the decomposition of the carbonic acid by 

 the green parts of the plant, under the influence of light, 

 into pure carbon and oxygen ; the separation of these 



