PREFACE. 



ings it will bring, the common property of the people 

 everywhere. The Austrian Board of Instruction, in 

 fact, already admits the laying out of suitable school 

 gardens in several normal school institutions, and the 

 Diet of Lower Austria, by planting school gardens in the 

 pro-seminaries it has erected with so many sacrifices in 

 Vienna, Neustadt and St. Potten, has given a striking 

 example of its comprehension of the idea. But real 

 life already hastens the general founding of school gar- 

 dens in the normal school institutions. In K. K. Sile- 

 sia, the Moravian-Silesian Congress of Silk Culture agi- 

 tated the subject in a striking manner by means of a 

 hand-bill, giving one of my original plans for small 

 country school gardens, and the K. K. Country School 

 Council showed itself as active as it was intelligent. In 

 other countries the practical result of my pamphlet soon 

 manifested itself in the creation of single school gardens. 



The Vienna Exposition of 1873 made an epoch for 

 school gardens. The Austrian model school, in whose 

 origin and prosecution the author took an active part, 

 was visited by thousands from all countries, and since 

 this object had the good fortune to excite quite unusual 

 practical results, the subject did not fail of its influence. 

 It pleased numerous friends of schools, and its general dif- 

 fusion can no longer be a question of any thing but time. 



The Country School Counsellor of the Moravians 

 then interested himself in the general diffusion of the 

 school gardens. He demanded the help of the K. K. 

 District School Counsellor, and expressly the State 

 School Counsellor, for their co-operation ; he sought 

 out the Agricultural Society and its sections, and affili- 

 ated meetings, for their active support of the measure ; 

 and, in short, he allowed the plans I had published in 



