524 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



any mind, it must have periods when it can fully express that 

 which affords it most pleasure, and express this in its own way. 

 It must also have facilities for the best expression. 



It does a pupil some good to play farm by the roadside, with 

 pieces of rail and straggling rock, with miniature trees from pine 

 boughs. It does the girl some good to play house-keeping with 

 fragments of china, chairs made of chips, and rag-babies. How 

 they will struggle to give some idea of house-keeping with the 

 rudest materials ! But put into the hands of little girls dolls of 

 symmetrical figure, with facilities for dressing them; furnish them 

 wuth toy-tables, miniature plates, cups, &c., perfect in form; give 

 them a room that can be divided into apartments; and afford 

 facilities to aid them in expressing their best idea of domestic life, 

 occasionally quickening their minds by some thoughts of your 

 own, or a word of approval, and they will certainly be benefited; 

 their minds will be strengthened and made more practical. 



If a similar course is pursued with both sexes, in affording fa- 

 cilities for expressing their best ideas of a garden, the opportunity 

 will be welcomed with even more enthusiasm, and greater and 

 better results would follow. I have remarked before, that I 

 would consider physical development and perfection the first 

 thing to be secured. I consider gardening one of the best means 

 of securing this. I would therefore have certain hours when I 

 would require all pupils to work in the garden for health. A 

 knowledge of chemistry, botany and agriculture, is useful and 

 important to all persons. Such knowledge I would make it a 

 point to communicate during these hours of required labor and st udy 

 in the garden; and should regard it one of the most important ex- 

 ercises in which either sex can be engaged. During the hours so 

 appropriated, I would have each pupil of both sexes put into the 

 ground at the proper time the seeds of every plant used in the 

 family. I would have every pupil of the school transplant each 

 a cabbage on the same day ; another day, let each transplant let- 

 tuce, summer-savory, egg-plant, &c., &c. The daily and weekly 

 compositions of such a school I would have consist of minute rec- 

 ords of all the treatment of these seeds and plants — times of plant- 

 ing, hoeing, manuring and watering, the manner in which they 

 were harvested, with reasons for trying any original methods, and 

 authorities for any ideas adopted from others. 



