676 General Notices. 



* First Exhibition of the Newry, Armagh, and Dundalh Horticultural Society. 

 — Oct. 4. The collection of fruits, flowers, and vegetables was large and 

 diversified ; and evinces a great progress in horticultural science among the 

 people of the surrounding districts. Cherries, black and ripe ; gooseberries, 

 fresh and red; currants, grapes, and oranges ; were there in abundance and 

 perfection. The show of flowers was strikingly beautiful. It is utterly 

 impossible for us to enter into a more detailed description ; but we sincerely 

 congratulate the founders of this useful Society, and the public in general, on 

 the admirable exhibition which we have just witnessed. It promises well for 

 the future character and operations of the body. (N'ewri/ Examiner, Oct. 5.) 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



We have long had a mass of most valuable matter, collected from various 

 journals, which belongs to this head, and which we take the opportunity af- 

 forded by a double number to introduce; strongly recommending the diflferent 

 paragraphs to the study of the young gardener. 



MORAL IMPROVEMENT OF GARDENERS. 



School Education. — Though we wish to occupy our pages with this subject 

 as little as [)ossible, yet we are desirous of keeping its importance continually 

 before the young gardener. V/e cannot therefore pass over an admirable 

 paper on the subject, which has been published by the celebrated astronomer, 

 Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, and which will be found in the Philo- 

 sophical Magazine for May, p. 432 — 438. Some of our readers will recol- 

 lect an extract which we gave, in 1832, from a pamphlet by the same philoso- 

 pher, published at Windsor in that year. Sir John Herschel is one of the 

 few profoundly learned and scientific men in this country, who have had the 

 courage to come forward in favour of the high education of the great mass of 

 the people, from the very lowest upwards. For a thousand persons that 

 would approve of bestowing a certain quantity of education on the people, 

 so as to render them better servants and subjects, there is not, perhaps, ten 

 that would approve of giving them as much more as they had a capacity of 

 receiving, so as to admit of their reaching the highest rank in science. Till 

 this is done, however, it is evident that there must be in science an artificial 

 aristocracy, which is inconsistent with perfect liberty and political equalit}'. 



Sir John Herschel's observations, though they have reference to a scheme 

 of instruction at the Cape of Good Hope, are, in many particulars, equally 

 applicable to parochial schools in Britain, if these were once established on a 

 proper footing. 



" A good practical system of public education," Sir John says, " ought to 

 convey much positive knowledge, with as little attention to mere systems and 

 forms as is consistent with avoiding solecisms. This principle, carried into 

 detail, would allow much less weight to the study of languages, especially of 



dead languages, than is usually considered its due While, on 



the other hand, it would attach great importance to all those branches of 

 practical and theoretical knowledge, the possession of which goes far to con- 

 stitute an idea of a well-informed gentleman ; as, for example, a knowledge of 

 the nature and constitution of the world we inhabit ; its animal, vegetable, 

 and mineral productions, and the system of the universe, and its natural and 

 political subdivisions ; and last, and most important of all, the nature and 

 propensities of man himself, as developed in the history of nations, and the 

 biography of individuals ; the constitutions of human society, including our 

 responsibilities to individuals, and to the social body of which we are mem- 

 bers ; in a word, as extensive knowledge as can be grasped, and conveyed in 

 an elementary course, of the actual system and laws of nature, both physical 

 and moral. 



