comstock] NATURE-STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 143 



have splendid texts for small rural schools, for consolidated rural 

 schools, for agricultural schools, and for agricultural colleges. 

 There seems no reason why the consolidated rural school in a 

 district five miles square, the agricultural high school accommo- 

 dating one county, or, better, several counties, and the agricul- 

 tural college in each state, should not be articulated into a system 

 for country life parallel to the system of city graded schools, city 

 high schools and universities, which are already unified in the 

 work of educating: for city life. Nature-study in the rural school 

 and in the city graded school will prepare the minds of all pupils 

 for scientific and industrial subjects. Because so many drop out 

 before the high school, there is every excuse for making this 

 nature-study somewhat industrial in its nature. The farms, city 

 industries and the homes everywhere will receive benefit from 

 nature-study properly taught, and some practical subject-matters 

 relating to these industries can be worked into nature-study 

 teaching quite as well as subject-matter not industrial in character. 

 Systems of text-books and of laboratory practice will no doubt 

 so classify instruction as to push the industrial work farther up 

 in the course of study, but the resourceful teacher can use much 

 out of the daily home experiences of the pupils to reinforce the 

 course of study in the prescribed outline. 



NATURE-STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



BY ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK 

 Lecturer in Nature-Study, Cornell University 



The Cornell University nature-study movement is primarily an 

 agricultural movement. It has had for its object from the first 

 the presentation to the child of the more interesting phases of 

 life on the farm, and the giving him some inkling of the ways 

 of the plants and animals that creep up unnoticed to his very 

 doorstone, with the hope that the interest thus aroused would 

 later deter his feet from following the broad path that leads from 

 the farm to the city. Some there be who have criticized the 

 Cornell method and have said, " Why not teach agriculture pure 

 and simple from the first?" To this query one might retort with 

 quite as much reason, " Why not teach the child grammar before 

 it learns to speak so that its first words may be lisped according 



