NATURE-STUDY IN CITY AND RURAL SCHOOLS 



By E. EARL DUBOIS 

 Ogdensburg, N. Y. 



Now that the nature-study movement has become recognized 

 as a permanent factor in education, many of the agricultural 

 colleges which have done so much to promote it are beginning to 

 devote their efforts more and more to purely agricultural subjects 

 and topics related directly to farm life. I believe, most firmly, 

 in the teaching of agriculture in the rural common schools because 

 the farmer, more than anyone else, needs a knowledge of the sub- 

 jects related to his life-work and, as so few of them go to any 

 other school, where else can they obtain it. I do believe, how- 

 ever, in the teaching of nature-study in all public schools in city 

 and country alike — nature-study that will interest the child in 

 his surroundings and broaden his outlook upon life, whether 

 those surroundings be those of a farm or of a city. In other 

 words, is agriculture, nature-study? To the farm boy, it is; to 

 the city child it is science. 



During the past winter I have been watching the work of a 

 class of about 30 girls who comprise a teacher's training class in a 

 high school. All of them, excepting one or two, have always 

 lived in a city and know but little about farm life. The nature- 

 study syllabus which they are attempting to follow requires such 

 subjects as stock feeding, rotation of crops, fertilizers, insect 

 pests and general farm and dairy management. Knowing 

 nothing about farm life and not having yet become familiar with 

 the principles underlying farm work, this class of girls cannot 

 understand or appreciate these subjects and when they begin to 

 teach they will either neglect nature-study altogether or do 

 what might be worse, attempt to teach it in a wrong way. If this 

 same class had been required to study only those things which 

 were near at hand, things more closely related to their own lives, 

 the simple facts of plant growth and nutrition, the work of the 

 trees and the life history of common birds and animals, could all 

 be learned naturally and they would learn how to study nature. 

 Then if later on they are called to teach in rural schools their 

 study will have provided them with a key to their new surround- 

 ings and they will meet the problems of the farm in quite a differ- 

 ent spirit. 



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