20 THE NA TURE-STUD Y RE VIE W [5: ijan., 1909 



All of these ideas and many more furnish to the Normal School 

 students very forceful lessons which have direct application on 

 the hygienic side of their own every-day lives. 



Although not much connection has as yet been made with 

 the children of the Training School, I have myself gained some 

 ideas of possibilities along those lines by the experiences of my 

 own children. I have already related some of these. 



After seeing their father experiment with the incubator, my 

 boys were anxious to try raising some chicks. We discussed 

 matters at some length and finally it was decided that the older 

 boy might try running a small incubator which I had purchased, 

 and that the younger should set a hen. Each was interested in 

 the experiences of the other and so both became well acquainted 

 with the different stages of both methods of chicken hatching. 



When the young chicks were transferred from the incubator 

 to the brooders a few were thought not able to fight their way 

 with the others. My boys asked for several of these unfortunates. 

 They fed and watered them; put them out into the sunshine in 

 the morning and behind the stove at night. They tried to 

 straighten crooked feet, and expended a vast amount of sym- 

 pathy upon them. Some died and were buried with tears; 

 others grew to be valuable members of the hen colony. 



As a result of these chicken experiences and of various garden 

 expeiiences they are glad to try for this winter (1908-9) the 

 following plan: Each boy has charge of a flock of hens and a 

 cock, one flock consisting of Rhode Island Reds and the other of 

 Barred Plymouth Rocks. The hens are furnished ; the boys do all 

 of the work, pay for the food and sell the eggs. Each boy will 

 have half of the profits from his flock. The lessons which they 

 are learning could not be so well learned in any other way and 

 they are lessons which are becoming a valuable part of their 

 equipment for life. 



It is true, as someone objects, that such training cannot well 

 be given to every child at school. But the school can do much. 

 It can help to cultivate the right attitude toward this kind of 

 work, and nearly every family in our villages and in our small 

 cities would find it profitable, pleasurable and educational to 

 teach the children how to care for a few hens. 



"They knew, as God knew, that command of nature comes by 

 obedience to nature ; that reward comes by faithful service * ''' * 

 There was no secret of labor which they disdain." — Kmerson. 



