AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 523 



I wish therefore to explain the way by which I would secure a 

 good practical agricultural education to every pupil of both sexes. 

 I believe this may be done, while at the same time the develop- 

 ment and culture of the intellect and the heart may be promoted. 

 But it must form part of a system of integral education, in har- 

 mony with the peculiar genius of the individual, yet where every 

 power of the soul is cultivated. In this system, physical culture 

 must receive the first attention. And this physical culture must 

 aim at more than we usually seek. Not only must we desire a 

 body without pain, but we must seek absolute health — ease and 

 grace of motion — symmetry of form — manly strength, and the 

 most dexterous use of all the faculties. 



As we pass through New England in summer, we see the terri- 

 tory about the school house walled out into miniature ftirms — 

 miniature wells are dug, and sometimes stoned — roads are built — 

 barns, representing the highest practical idea of the boy or girl 

 builder — toy orchards and symbolic gardens. 



Now these do not occur in a few solitary and peculiar cases 

 only. The country schools where such things are not found are 

 the exceptions. What mean these spontaneous expressions of 

 childhood. Whence come those stone walls, reared by the same 

 hands that refuse to cull the stones from the potato patch and bar- 

 ley field at home 1 It is the effort of these unfolding minds to 

 express their own ideas. I would rather say, it is the struggle of 

 the inspirations from heaven to be voluntarily ultimated through 

 eachof those individual human organizations. These rude efforts 

 are appeals from heaven to you and to me to afford opportunities 

 where the growing mind may express with facility and in beauti- 

 ful relations its highest conceptions — those which so press for ulti- 

 mation that, under the most adverse circumstances, and with the 

 rudest material, they must take some form. 



I would take advantage of this willingness of each mind to ex- 

 press its own thoughts, even in forms of labor which would other- 

 wise be drudgery, and would afford facilities for it to give its own 

 highest ideas, which it is always a pleasure for any mind to ex- 

 press. This must be the free expression of the mind of the pupil 

 — not an exercise prescribed by another mind, whether teacher or 

 parent. To secure the most efficient action and development of 



