We have read with sympathetic interest the clever and suggestive papers discussing this subject in these pages for some months back, and we are anxious to see the Editor's final remarks on the subject, as we are certain there is no gardener in the kingdom better qualified from experience or judgment to say what the gardener's education ought to be, what sort of young man from this point of view makes the best gardener, and how education is to be applied in order to test the whole profession - if by education it is to be done, as some suppose. We are not going to plunge into the discussion for or against any-particular view of the subject. Much that we should have liked to have said has been very much better said already; not fool enough to rush into criticism, having a wholesome dread of blows, still not sufficiently angelic to fear to tread in the wake and shade of wiser men. Since the Editor invites opinion on the subject, we propose only to give a few notions about education in general, and gardeners' education in particular. We have been trying to define in a few words, in our own mind, what education is, but have failed; and yet we hear of wonderful lots of people having finished their education. We readily understand a process of education.

That education is not knowledge is certain; and one may have lots of knowledge and no education, and yet in being educated we are acquiring knowledge. Education seems something preliminary to knowledge - the key to open the strong box, the Rosetta stone which is to decipher the great hieroglyph of knowledge. Education is a process of training for some purpose, as we do dogs and soldiers; but we may end with the training and never begin the purpose. What lots of educated people we have nowadays of both sexes to no purpose! Indeed, to be educated has become quite a fashionable distinction, and yet to be highly educated is compatible with any degree of ignorance. Indeed, we venture to say that the ignorance of some of our acquaintance is in proportion to the extent of their education. We know young gentlemen who have been jockeyed through the Eton and Oxford course, and finished complete muffs. No doubt Lord Dundreary is an educated man. However, we forget the purpose; so the Eton and Oxford education may be the training for gentlemen. We fear many have their power of vision trained away, for to be highly educated is to see nothing, to look vacant, to admire nothing, to laugh at nothing - in short, not to be vulgar: savage accomplishments; but extremes meet.

We hope the young gardener is not about to be so super-educated as to overlook the "very common things".

If education be a training for a purpose, the gardener must have his special training; and a twofold training - a mechanical and a mental. The soldier gets his training on parade, the gardener must have his in the garden; but as the parade-ground could never make the soldier a commanding officer, neither can the garden alone make a true gardener. Every schoolmaster knows that education is not so much a stuffing in as a pumping out of the mind, to give room for wholesome ideas - indeed, a mind simple, vacant, and hungry, as it were, is in the best possible condition to receive instruction; but a mind choke-full of conceit and great notions of its acquirements wants pumping out.

Most young gardeners require a great deal of pumping out, as masters find to their cost in temper and patience. At any rate, like the soldier in the awkward squad, he requires his hands, legs, and eyes disciplined in the garden. This discipline must embrace a pretty extensive range of subjects, - levelling of ground, planting, training; in fact, everything which demands skilled labour. This, we take it, is a very important part of a gardener's education indeed, seeing that it is essentially a practical profession, like surgery. All the very best generals, from Frederick the Great downwards, have been stern disciplinarians. We must learn to obey before we can command. The mental part of the gardener's education seems, however, to monopolise attention at present, as if that were the great want of the class. We do not think the mental ability of the profession is at all retrograding as compared with its practical efficiency. We have a great army and navy fit for any practical undertaking, but we do not hear of many great admirals or generals. Gardening is not in that position; we have abundance of great generals.

We do not, however, mean in the least to underrate the importance for all gardeners of a well-disciplined mind, and it well stored with all sorts of useful information bearing on the subject; indeed, such is necessary to every one who would rise above mere routine. The amount of education the gardener requires to begin with, and how it is to be acquired, seems to be the vexed point. Much preliminary learning does not seem at all necessary - a little learning in this case might be a troublesome if not a dangerous thing; and yet we are told that if gardening is to be maintained at all, the rising generation ought to be acquainted with all the ologies - indeed, most of the sciences which end with y. In the view of a large amount of work with a minimum of hands, if we were asked to disestablish our present rather unscientific though generally industrious staff, and accept a batch of those young philosophers in their stead, we own we should dread the result. In addition to the training which our future gardener receives at home, the school accomplishments of reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic must of course be given; and let me say that the young man who can really read well, write well, and is master of the fundamentals of arithmetic, has accomplished a very great deal - indeed, we do not hesitate to say that he has accomplished all that is necessary at school in view of his prospects as a gardener.

His practical education must begin early. I repeat, it is no small matter to be able to read. Thousands of grown-up people fancy they can read the Bible, but they cannot. Many young men read through useful books, and after all they are not read; they must mark, learn, and inwardly digest what is read. Some scientific books are often read just as a pastime, as we would a novel; indeed, many are written simply as sensational science. It is certain that the man who cannot read well can never write well. We do not refer to mere handwriting, although to be a good penman is an excellent acquirement, but to the manner and matter written. The man who knows his own language well can never make many grammatical mistakes. Many a gardener has been able to overcome otherwise insurmountable difficulties by being able to lay those difficulties succinctly, forcibly, and clearly before his employer in writing. A man's letter is a pretty good gauge of his mind. We are sorry to say that we have received letters from head-gardeners of which we were heartily ashamed, insomuch that we felt degraded that such men should be chosen to occupy the same professional platform.

Handwriting may be like the address of Tony Lumpkin's letter; but as the same authority sagely remarked that the inside always contained the cream of the correspondence, we would forgive the crabbed penmanship if the matter make us respect the writer.

We have said that the gardener must begin early the practical branch of his education; therefore he has no time to spare, even if it were expedient, in view of his future prospects, to pursue an advanced course of school education. Young men, as a rule, cannot be grounded in the sciences before being turned into the garden; but if that were practicable, we think physical geography of the first importance, meteorology and vegetable physiology to some extent. But we open a dangerous prospect for our argument. Those sciences are mines of knowledge for him; with perseverance, energy, and the mental tools with which nature and the schoolmaster have provided him, he will have abundance of opportunity for picking out and storing his mind with a whole cyclopaedia of information. We have said the young man does not require to be a ready-made philosopher before entering the garden. George Stephenson was only a pit-boy, and so was George Elliot of the present day; and all our best living gardeners, we venture to say, started early to work in the garden. The very perseverance and energy which enable the young man to educate himself will secure his success in future life.

It is that sort of energy which will triumph over the innumerable petty difficulties which are incessantly besetting the gardener's operations.

There is one aspect of education which seems to be overlooked, and which is of much importance to the gardener, seeing that he has to come much into contact with people of taste, and that is the education of the manners: this alone is education among certain classes. While decision of character should be cultivated in the forming and carrying out of plans of operation, nothing is more offensive in a servant than over-confidence and arrogance: deference should at all times be shown with judgment to the opinion of others, especially employers and superiors. Modesty is characteristic of superior ability. Neatness in appearance and a prompt and ready address are always pleasing to employers. Snobbishness and foppery are utterly contemptible in the eyes of those whose bread we eat, or who are our superiors in position, and who look at us from an elevated social stand-point. An employer respects his servant for what he can do in return for the money paid, and for his intrinsic worth as a man. We ought all to try and know ourselves and study character in others: sometimes it is safe to take some good and successful man as our model.

We would recommend to the young man the reading of some books which perhaps many would condemn, for instance the Kenilworth and Quentln Durward of Sir Walter Scott, the Plays of Shakespeare and the Proverbs of Solomon, to which last we guess no one will object.

The selection of the right man for the right place is a more difficult problem, we think, than that of education. It is discouraging enough for the young man who has industriously devoted his novitiate in acquiring a fund of useful information, to enable him to take his place in a forward position in the profession, to find himself forestalled by another competitor who has few acquired qualifications, except that of having an all-powerful friend. The Royal Horticultural Society are no doubt taking a step in the right direction by the institution of examinations. Those will point the finger of fame to the successful candidates in mental acquirements, but there still remains after all the most essential - namely, the practical test. There are many excellent gardeners with but scant mental learning; on the other hand, there are many who are choke-full of science, who can talk and write by the hour and yard, yet who, if weighed in the practical balance, would certainly be found wanting. The Squire's Gardener.