AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 527 



But it is not for purposes of physical exercise merely that I urge 

 gardening, nor yet for the acquisition of agricultural or botanical 

 knowledge, nor for the cultivation of taste — but for an end, to 

 me, greater than all these. 



I think I have demonstrated, in my past medical experience, 

 that man is constantly receiving magnetic currents from the earth, 

 unless their passage is intercepted by substances through which 

 these currents cannot pass — as is done by India rubber shoes, 

 which interrupt the flow of the vital fluid from the earth, and 

 thus cause the feet to perspire, not in consequence of heating 

 them, but of deranging the vital circulation, by cutting off" the 

 continual supply from the earth. The vital currents are up the 

 legs ; and the less there is to impede their flow, the more vital 

 power. The boy who brings his bare feet in contact with his 

 mother earth receives freely from her generous bosom currents 

 equally as important to his full development and health as are 

 the more material fluids of her who- bore him. 



As soon as I had fully demonstrated this to my own satisfac- 

 tion, I began to apply it in my medical practice. During the 

 warm summer months I would endeavor to bring the whole sur- 

 face of the bodies of feeble invalids in contact with fresh-turned 

 earth. Some of the most feeble cases of children among my own 

 patients, and some who came into my hands, when given over to 

 die by another physician, I have laid carefully on the warm bo- 

 som of mother earth, and gently rubbed the little body with the 

 soft fresh soil ; and in no single instance without success in afford- 

 ing relief and securing a cure. And the more earnestly it should 

 be urged upon me tliat a sick child of mine could not survive, if 

 it was during the warm weather of summer, the more certainly 

 would I put it where it could have the best flow of the magnetic 

 virtues of the earth into every part of its feeble and dying body. 



I do not need to draw the argument from this in favor of agri- 

 culture for schools, or to dwell upon the advantages of exercise in 

 gardening for pupils of both sexes who desire good health. With 

 the elasticity of body and energy of mind that may tlius be se- 

 cured, it will be found that the child, instead of requiring to be 

 driven by fear of punishment to commit a certain number of lines 



