The Canadian Horticulturist. 377 



HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



T several meetings of our Association, the subject of the study of 

 horticulture in our schools has been more or less touched upon 

 and advocated. Now, while we do not all believe in adding to 

 the number of text books in our public school, or burdening the 

 young with a multiplicity of studies, we believe that something 

 might be done in this direction, which has not yet been attempted in Ontario. 

 A book knowledge of horticulture is not the way to inspire any fondness for 

 gardening or for the tasteful decoration of the house grounds. This mode of 

 teaching has been altogether too much followed out in the pursuit of the study 

 of nature ; and the result is that, while many people c^n speak of the various 

 rock formations which make up the earths, or of the many classes of flowers 

 which decorate our woods, they cannot recognize any of them when they meet 

 them. The only way to teach gardening is by actual work in the garden. 



If we had in Ontario a school of horticulture, the sessions which were held 

 during the summer months, and which could give certificates to those who had 

 completed the course in any one department, it would be an opportunity for 

 those teachers, who were so inclined, to spend their summer vacations agreeably 

 in such a piace. They would thus become desirable candidates for 

 the mastership of those public or high schools in which these subjects 

 were required to be practically taught. This line of study in the schools could 

 then be carried out by the head master, in the same practical way that he had 

 learned it at the college, and might be a means of recreation to those 

 pupils who were interested in horticulture. 



Such a college as the one mentioned might have a series of courses, each to 

 be completed in two months, and a diploma might be given to those who had 

 completed the whole course. 



The British Fruit Grower's Association are in advance of us in Ontario in 

 this line. They have prepared a scheme of horticultural education, for use in 

 public schools, which has been favorably received by the Department of Education 

 there. It embraces a three year's course ; the first, taking up the principles of 

 plant life ; the second, the elementary operations of gardening ; the third, the 

 details with regard to those operations in the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, 

 and flowers, etc., which are of primary importance to the cultivator. 



In addition to this, the county councils in England send out competent 

 lecturers to lecture in rural districts upon these subjects. This latter work we 

 are accomplishing quite as successfully as our English friends, through the 

 farmer's institutes. The idea of establishing colleges for the training of teachers 

 and for the education of a higher class of {)upils, is nothing new. Such colleges 

 are quite common in Belgium, France, Germany and the United States. In 

 connection with the botanical garden of St. Louis, there is an excellent insti- 



