STEVENS] RE LA TION OF NA TURE-S TUD Y A iVD A GRICUL TURE 99 



terest in these things. [These remarks pave the way for the 

 next sentence in a manner that I did not note until rewriting.] 

 With interest even the dullard will think, the lazy will work, the 

 mischievous will become studious. [I must beg my own par- 

 don.] Interest seems to me to be, far and away, the one most 

 important thing to the individual, to the school, to the teacher 

 and more; io productive activity in any field. I have long re- 

 garded it as the primary function of nature-study to instil into 

 the pupils a love of nature, not the facts of nature. To open the 

 mind to inquiry and observation and to prepare it to acquire 

 facts for itself. 



The spirit of love of nature is everything. The facts remem- 

 bered are nothing. If the learning of facts as a task be forced 

 upon the pupil, they are worse than nothing because they be- 

 come repellent rather than attractive to more knowledge. When 

 learning becomes drudgery, the habit of learning ceases to grow, 

 at least as regards the kind of knowledge that created the dislike. 



The child must be led to nature-study by this the easiest path, 

 interest, and this path will then conduct him to the other interests 

 of the school. While nature-study in city or in country has ever 

 embarrassing richness of subject-matter which is admirably 

 fitted to serve the general purposes of nature-study, the material ' 

 of the country can serve not only the general purposes usually 

 assigned, but also can serve a special purpose as well. At the 

 same time that they are nurturing in the heart of the child that 

 love for the covmtry and country life and country things, that 

 thirst for knowledge of the out-of-doors, they can develop a 

 specific interest in things agricultural, a special knowledge of the 

 materials of agricultural practice, and even a peep at some of the 

 principles of this wonderful, mysterious awe-inspiring funda- 

 mental art of humanity. 



The nature-sttidy of the country school may therefore to great 

 advantage use largely as its subject-matter things agricultural. 

 Create, direct or enlarge an interest and incidentally give some 

 knowledge to the country child concerning such things as the 

 corn or cotton plant, its roots, flower, fruit, history; of the cow, 

 habits, digestive peculiarities, structure; of the parasitic insects, 

 life-histories, structure, etc. ; the emergence of the plantlet from 

 the seed, etc. Surely all of the educative factors lie here as 

 abundantly, yes, much more abundantly than with the golden- 



