242 STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
in practice, it will be because the most obvious duty, and the 
easiest part of the work of education has been neglected. 
Its constant invocation should be in harmony with that of 
the soul of Nature, saying to them, » 
Come forth on Sundays; 
x Come forth on Mondays ; 
Come forth on any day ; 
Children, come forth to play;— 
Worship the Cod of Nature in your childhood; 
Worship Him at your task, with best endeavor; 
Worship Him in your sports; 
Worship Him ever; 
Worship Him in the wildwood; 
Worship Him amidst the flowers; 
In the greenwood bowers; 
Pluck the violets blue ; 
Ah, pluck not a few; 
Pluck the buttercups, and raise 
Your voices in His praiseP/” 
And now there is more to'say than in the beginning; for 
these words are but suggestions of what could be urged in 
favor of the horticultural embellishment of school-house 
grounds. 
When Charles Lamb was asked by a friend what sign or 
advertisement he should put up over the place where he w r as 
about to open a school for juveniles, the answer was, “Murder 
of the Innocents.” As with reluctant pen and heart the 
demand for brevity is yielded to the passing hour, these words 
come up with a significance that almost compels the expres¬ 
sion of things yet unsaid, to plead in this behalf. For though, 
in the half century that has elapsed since “Murder of the In¬ 
nocents” might well have been written over schools opened in 
the babel of London streets, the school-houses of our country 
have come to be its crowning glory, I yet remember that even 
here there are thousands of them upon the marge of desolate 
swamps or on barren hill-sides, to which these words of fearful 
import were not inapplicable. 
Rut I also recall those glowing lines where the enthusiast 
of a visioned future exclaims, 
