CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. 31 



Suggestions and discussions by the 

 delegates. 



Me. Herbert Myrick of Springfield. 



The first thing we must do in this tree matter is to graft the 

 tree onto the school. We must get hold of the children of the ris- 

 ing generation. This is a simple matter, if you know how. Let 

 the State Forester, for instance, take the white piae as an ex- 

 ample, — a most wonderful tree, a tree that will turn our waste 

 lands iato gold mines, — and let him prepare for the teachers a 

 pamphlet descriptive of this tree. I say for the teachers, not the 

 pupils. Let the pupils go out and collect the tree seed and plant 

 it and raise seedlings. Let them transplant the seedlings and study 

 the operations of that tree in its growth from year to year. Then 

 add onto that work the reading, writing and arithmetic of the 

 school. Let the children learn to do by doing. They have had 

 too many books. Let them get down to business, — the real thing. 

 What will be the result? They will become filled with 'enthusiasm. 

 They will take up the rest of their work also, and do it much better ; 

 and instead of coming out of school weak and pasty and putty- 

 like, they will come out with some ginger in them. That is what 

 we must have here in New England. 



Then for the higher education. Why, the tree embodies nearly 

 all the sciences, and what the tree does not embody, the soil does. 

 Do you tealize what a handful of mother earth means? Here is 

 life and death, action and reaction, electricity, vibration, etc. Here 

 is every science, — mineralogy, geology, chemistry, botany and bi- 

 ology in all its forms. Mother earth, — why, she is the womb of 

 humanity. She is the common expression of the universal Divinity. 

 She is the burial place of men. All who tread the earth are but 

 a handful to the tribes that slumber in her bosom. Not only that, 

 but the mysteries of the soil, the life, etc., take you ever into the 

 farthest realms of contemplation, aye, even into the highest ab- 

 stract thought. 



This new education, this idea of letting the child learn by doing. 



