dickbrsonJ NATURE-STUDY IN CITY PRIMARY SCHOOLS 101 



where we will we can think of nothing more powerful than contact 

 with nature and active manual work. These influences can act with 

 greater force in the homes ; but the impulse, the example and the 

 information must come from the schools. 



All this has to do with the character of the citizen. The nation 

 must consider also industrial questions on which its welfare depends 

 and it has a right to ask that the public schools shall aid in times of 

 crises. The country has approached quite near enough to disaster in 

 regard to the industries pertaining to agriculture and forestry. These 

 industries are fundamental in a nation because they supply the neces- 

 sities of ordinary living and give more employment than is furnished 

 by any of the other industries. There has been great growth of 

 cities and not a corresponding growth of farms, in fact there has been 

 considerable abandonment of farms. The right proportion must be 

 kept between the consumers in the cities and the workers on the 

 farms of the country. The nation stands in great need today of 

 more interested workers and improved methods in all the industries 

 pertaining to the cultivation of our farm land and the management of 

 our forests ; and this is the need not only of today, but it will con- 

 tinue to be a more and more threatening need as civilization 

 advances. 



Nature-study in the schools will tend not only toward keeping the 

 life of the city child high-minded, but may lead him later to pursuits 

 that grow out of interest in nature— may lead him into country life. 

 Nature-study in the country schools will not only open the eyes of the 

 children to the natural beauty about them, but will tend to increase 

 their interest in farm life, to dignify and elevate the work of the 

 individual farmer, and help him to get a larger return in dollars 

 and cents. 



After serious consideration from these fundamental standpoints it 

 would really seem that nature-study has not only a rightful claim to 

 a place in the public school curriculum, but also has a claim to a con- 

 siderable space on the program. 



If this is granted, then comes the difficulty ; for we have given 

 ourselves lofty aims and are face to face with the problem how to 

 attain these results. 



Let us attack the problem — limiting our consideration to primary 

 grades — " What shall primary nature-study teach, and how shall the 

 results be gained ?" 



First, we must understand from the circumstances of the case that 



