CROSBY] RE LA TION OF NA TURE-S TUD Y AND A GRICUL TURE g 5 



rural elementary school, nor differ seriously on the relations of 

 nature-study and elementary agriculture. 



We shall agree that education in the country should begin with 

 the things and affairs of the farm and home, and that the three 

 R's are not the fundamentals of education but are means of ac- 

 quiring and communicating knowledge of the fundamentals. 

 The things of the farm and home are largely animals, birds, in- 

 sects, plants and other natural objects, knowledge of which is 

 acquired by nature-study. The affairs are the business and 

 practice and principles of farming and home-making, which we 

 call agriculture and home economics. With the latter subject 

 this paper is not supposed to deal, so I shall speak only of nature- 

 study and agriculture for the boy. 



It would be difficult to define nature-study and agriculture in 

 such manner as to tell where the one leaves off and the other 

 begins. I doubt whether there is any clear distinction or 

 whether we care for one. I believe both should begin with the 

 earliest training of the country boy and neither should be 

 entirely omitted in his subsequent training. Nature-study is 

 both more and less than agriculture, and agriculture, even in the 

 elementary school, includes much which cannot properly be 

 termed nature-study. 



But for the convenience and guidance of teachers who are 

 compelled to administer instruction by means of more or less 

 complicated machinery, we must have definitions, as well as 

 text-books, courses of study, schedules, and the like. 



For convenience's sake then, we may say that nature-study 

 deals with the natural objects and phenomena coming into the 

 environment of the child, and agriculture with the theory and 

 practice of producing and using plants and animals useful to man. 

 Likewise for convenience's sake, we may say that nature-study 

 should precede the formal study of agriculture, and that in so 

 far as nature-study deals with the natural objects of the farm it is 

 an excellent preparation for agriculture. Of course I am aware 

 that the nature-study teacher who works under such a division of 

 the field could have nothing to do with domestic animals or with 

 plants improved by cultivation, breeding or conscious selection, 

 but again for convenience's sake, I am sure that agriculture would 

 be willing to concede to nature-study all that part of the field 

 which deals with the informal study of plants, animals, and 

 other natural phenomena, either wild or domesticated. 



