EXHIBITING NA TURE. 45 



NATURE BETTER THAN PICTURES. 



It must not be supposed that a park in the near 

 neighborhood of a city, or a public garden, can render 

 a school garden unnecessary or take the place of it. 

 Such places may suffice for the teachers ; but only per- 

 sonally for purposes of their own culture, not for that of 

 their pupils. Whoever will learn to swim must go into 

 the water, and whoever wishes to know nature must go 

 into nature. If the school wish to teach of natural bod- 

 ies it must exhibit them, produce them on the spot, and 

 produce them often, and if they are changeable bodies, 

 like plants,, they must be observed in their various de- 

 velopments. Nature is better than all the picture 

 books ! It is pitiful to think that many cultivated peo- 

 ple in cities do not know even our most common forest 

 trees, whose number does not reach thirty; that many 

 city people do not even know how to distinguish the dif- 

 ferent kinds of grain in the fields ; do not even know 

 that the leaf and flower buds upon trees and bushes 

 are already formed in the autumn, and wrapped in 

 the safe integuments with which nature invests them 

 for preservation against the winter cold. 



Excursions for the purpose of learning natural history 

 are very desirable for the city schools, but these are 

 very impracticable in large cities, and would not be suf- 

 ficient alone to teach any thing more than the most 

 superficial acquaintance with it. 



A school garden in the city fills the hearts of the 

 children, even of those who can only see it out of 

 the windows, with transport, and makes them fre- 

 quent it so much the more willingly. One need but see 

 what joy they have in only a few trees in front of the 



