76 THE SCHOOL GARDEN. 



cultivated family, every individual thinking mind, busies 

 itself at present with the first of all the questions of life 

 the Empire State. Six years have passed since the 

 promulgation of the excellent law, and already a quiet 

 and noiseless, but so much the more persistent process 

 of revolution in public instruction penetrates into the 

 depths of the life of the people. Already we can say 

 that, according to the understanding, the zeal, the self- 

 sacrifice with which every individual as well as every 

 community accompanies this revolution and takes a 

 working interest in it, can the degree of culture, and 

 the morals of the individual and the community be 

 judged. 



The erection, preservation and care of the public 

 school is the first consideration of the local authority. 

 It is at present the most important problem of that local 

 authority ; upon its worthy solution depends the whole 

 future of that authority's welfare. 



Among all the arrangements of the State, the school 

 takes the front place ; for the school is the nursery of 

 the intelligence, the morality, the industry, the national- 

 ity, the justice, the power and the genuine love of the 

 fatherland. That the timely foundation of school gar- 

 dens, in city and country, will help essentially to fur- 

 ther the task of public education, should be clear to 

 every reader of this little pamphlet. Good school gar- 

 dens will also be sources of health, of spiritual refine- 

 ment and cheerfulness to the teacher ; they will make 

 it easier to him to teach simply, freshly, lovingly, prac- 

 tically, to educate youth naturally, and to make him 

 acquainted with individualities. They will solve the 

 questions in natural history surely and quietly because 

 founded upon the love of work, and therefore upon one 



