FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
189 
When we remember that of the manv 
millions of school children, only one per 
cent, or less, graduate from the high 
school, (of which 80 per cent are fe¬ 
males), that by far the greatest number 
never enter the high school, but have to 
begin their life work, with but a few 
years (or months) training in the com¬ 
mon schools, we realize how few of our 
boys and girls destined to be the farmers, 
and farmers’ wives, of the country, ever 
receive in school any practical or scientific 
knowledge of the subject which will be 
the principal, if not the only, pursuit of 
their lives. 
I will not indulge in the usual plati¬ 
tudes, “The farm the basis of wealth, the 
mudsill or foundation of the nation’s 
prosperity.” The object of my talk is to 
stimulate a demand for teaching those 
things that will be of the most value, to 
the greatest number of the future men 
and women of the country, that will ele¬ 
vate their conception of the dignity of 
their profession, and stimulate them to 
excel in its pursuit. 
Ninety per cent, of our boys and girls, 
particularly in the rural districts, “quit 
school” before reaching what is known 
as the seventh grade of the common 
schools; very few enter the high schools, 
and still fewer graduate therefrom. 
By far the larger part of our people 
begin their life’s work without finishing 
the course in the common schools, with 
a smattering of “Reading, Riting, and 
Rithmetic,” with no effort made to teach 
them any of the facts, or laws, underly¬ 
ing the profession they are to pursue. 
It would be folly for me to decry the 
value of the necessary preliminary stud¬ 
ies, arithmetic, spelling, reading and 
writing, and such fundamental branches. 
I do contend, however, that the rudi¬ 
mentary principles of Physics, Biology, 
and other natural sciences, “nature 
studies,” should be substituted for the 
ordinary “reader,”—with its fables and 
glittering generalities, elocutionary gym¬ 
nastics, and singsong poetry. Our read¬ 
ing exercises could be made useful and 
entertaining, and impart knowledge at 
the same time, language equally as pure 
taught, and correct ideas as to natural 
science imparted at the same time. 
Equally as interesting stories, inculcat¬ 
ing facts, can be substituted for the fables, 
and stories, of the present reading les¬ 
son. 
Many of the text-books on agriculture, 
—now abundant,—are interesting to a 
degree to the youthful mind,—always 
hungry for information. That child 
once taught the first law of physics, ex¬ 
pressed in simple language,—that “force 
and reaction are the same and in opposite 
directions,” will not in future life spend 
years in the futile effort to create perpet¬ 
ual motion. 
That child taught a few lessons in 
Physiology, or animal structure, will 
never be guilty of removing an animal’s 
inner eyelids to cure the “hooks,” nor 
bore a cow’s horn for “hollow horn.” 
When taught a few of the fundamental 
laws of Agricultural chemistry, he will 
not buy a ton of “guano” because it is 
cheaper than another ton; nor will he he 
persuaded to buy fertilizer, or feeds, on 
account of a name, or brand, and pay 
more for an inferior material with a 
catchy name. 
No lesson is more quickly absorbed, 
nor more easily taken in, by the average 
child than Physical geography, simply 
because it deals in facts, as to produc¬ 
tions, and conditions of various countries, 
strange animals, plants, people, and cus¬ 
toms. 
A boy or girl may not know what the 
