232 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [1, 5, sept. 1905 



birds, insects, flowers, trees, and other animal and plant life of the 

 school-yard, the roadside and the wayside pastures and woodlots. 

 This very pleasant and profitable way of gaining knowledge has been 

 their principal occupation during the two or three years that they 

 have been running about out of doors at home, and they should be 

 encouraged and aided to extend their knowledge of the things in 

 nature with which they are likely to come in daily contact through- 

 out their lives." 



" After the first year or two, the time depending on the progress 

 the children have made, more attention should be given to studying 

 life histories of plants and animals (especially birds and insects), so 

 that these may be recognized in all stages of their development, and 

 their economic relations determined. This will enable the pupils to 

 decide whether a given species is mainly beneficial or harmful and 

 will set them to thinking about means of perpetuating or exterminat- 

 ing the species. This last consideration is the one which mainly 

 determines the attitude of the farmer toward his field crops, domestic 

 animals and fowls, as well as toward the weeds and other pests that 

 annoy him. When the nature-study teacher and her pupils have 

 arrived at this point of view they will be in a position to pass over 

 as unimportant such details as color of hair, length and number of 

 teeth, number of leaves, length of petioles and internodes, and a hun- 

 dred other peculiarities of plants and animals, except as these pecu- 

 liarities have a direct bearing upon the perpetuation of the species or 

 upon their usefulness or harmfulness to man." 



With regard to elementary agriculture : " A well-arranged and up- 

 to-date text-book, with illustrations and suggestions for practical ex- 

 ercises, should be adopted as a basis for this study. . . . The instruc- 

 tion in the classroom should be supplemented by simple experiments 

 with soils, plants, and animals both at school and at home." 



Many other points in this pamphlet will interest teachers. 



School-Gardens. A valuable report on the cooperative work 

 between the U. S. Department of Agriculture and the normal 

 schools of Washington, with good notes on school-garden meth- 

 ods in fifteen other cities, is printed as Bulletin No. 160, Office of 

 Experiment Stations. The price is 10 cents; for sale by Super- 

 intendent of Documents, Washington. 



