EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



165 



mise has been most strangely unfulfilled and neglected. 

 Not to speak of universities^ some of wHch liave their 

 botanic gardens, there are^ for example^ round Edin- 

 burgh six foundation schools, or hospitals as they are 



• there called_, in which children of certain classes of the 

 community are boarded and educated till they are of 

 suitable age to go into trades or professions. Some of 



^ these institutions occupy magnificent buildings and have 

 almost princely revenues ; all of them are well endowed ; 

 and yet, while they are surrounded by grounds more or 

 less tolerably laid out, not one of them possesses a named 

 collection of plants, nor, so far as we know, is any 

 regular course of instruction in regard to natural objects 

 maintained within them. We cannot think that this 

 state of things, subsisting under the direction of nume- 

 rous weU-informed and intelligent men, is very much to 

 the credit of the science and the enterprise of Modern 

 Athens. 



We would deem it highly advisable to attach a garden 

 of two or three acres to the normal schools provided by 

 Government for the improvement of teaching. These, 

 under proper management, would enable the pupil- 

 teachers to carry back to their native homes or fnture 

 places of labour a correct nomenclature of plants and 

 much other useful information respecting them, but 

 little known in secluded districts. In reference to these 

 matters, the progress rnhde in Ireland is much in advance 

 of that on this side of the channel. The agricultural 

 seminaries at Glasnevin and Templemoile have consi- 

 derable collections of trees, shrubs, and plants attached 

 to them"^. 



* In 1840 we laid out an arboretum and miniature Botanic 



