ROBISI IN I 



TEXT-BOOKS FOR AGRICULTURE 185 



Daughertv's book. The fact that horticulture is not noticed accounts for 

 grafting and pruning getting less than half a page, while insects are hardly 

 touched upon. Soil temperature, seed planting, the various operations of 

 cultivation, and the leaf are treated more fully than in Jackson and Daugherty's 

 book. It has excellent experiments, which, unfortunately for class use, have 

 no marginal or topical indication of their aim or contents, being merely 

 labelled "experiment" and not even numbered. 



The experiments are evenly graded, and seem to be arranged in good 

 sequence, and do not explain things needed in preceding chapters. For text 

 purposes the book has another poor feature, in addition to that mentioned: 

 The text carefully explains how to carry on the experiment, and gives the 

 experimenter plenty to do in preparing it. But it leaves him with nothing to 

 do in drawing his conclusions. It starts out in a perfectly inductive way, 

 and then makes the induction tor the student, in a manner that sounds like 

 Samuel Wiggles worth's "Book of Doom," so much used by New England 

 Puritan children, which after telling an austere anecdote of an impossible 

 child, adds "which is to teach us." One might go through Goodrich's 

 book, never make an experiment, and still not have twinges of conscience. 

 For are not the results right here on the printed page before him? The book 

 is an excellent one for a grade teacher who is unfamiliar with the subject or 

 doubtful how to map out the work. If she is not sufficiently up-to-date to 

 believe in allowing the pupils to contribute to the problem, she can dictate or 

 copy the directions verbatim, and can be perfectly sure of the moral lesson to 

 be drawn therefrom. The only trouble is that once in a great while the 

 author does not tell just exactly what is to happen during the experiment, and 

 therefore, the voung teacher might not see, in case the experiment failed to 

 do just what it should, how ill-fitting said moral might happen to be. 



The book should not be in the hands of one you wish to inspire with an 

 appreciation of the method of induction reasoning and verification by 

 experimentation. It may safely be used by one who already has the 

 enthusiasm and the wit to see an incongruity between an experiment gone 

 wrong and the predicted result. The Goodrich book may be said, in many 

 ways, to stand between that of Jackson and Daugherty and Bailey's 

 "Principles." 



