CORRESPONDENCE AND DISCUSSIONS 



Training Teachers of Nature-Study. The impression that 

 nature-study is one thing and elementary agriculture another 

 appears to need checking. A recent bulletin of our State 

 University contains the folllowing paragraph : 



"For several years instruction that may properly be called 

 agricultural, though it certainly is not agriculture, has been 

 given under the titles Nature-Study and School-Gardens. 

 The trouble with this work is that it fails to connect with any 

 serious business of life. There is a wide breach left here between 

 the life in school and the life beyond the school. Many people 

 have the impression that Nature-Study and School-Garden 

 work are what is meant by school agriculture. They are not. ' 



That such distinction is unfortunate goes without saying here. 

 Is it not surprising if the Nature-Study Society and the leaders 

 in elementary agriculture find themselves at cross purposes in 

 any degree whatsoever ? Yet perhaps the instance cited attracts 

 attention more through its singularity than through evidence it 

 affords of any very general sentiment, though we have evidence 

 that such sentiment is not uncommon among schoolmasters in 

 Illinois. 



Surely criticism of nature-study as "failing to connect with 



any serious business of life" finds no more plausible basis than 



instances of nature-stucby badly taught. Is it not desirable that 



every effort be made to prevent in popular conception any such 



divorce of ideas as is indicated in the paragraph quoted? Surely 



it will work injury to what should be a common cause. 



[Professor JohnG. Coulter, Illinois State Normal University, at the 

 Conference of the American Xature-Study Society, at Cleveland, July 2.] 



Passenger Pigeons. While tending my birds this morning, a 

 flock of 30 to 40, what I believe to be passenger pigeons flew over 

 my head. It was about 6 a. m. and they flew almost due west. 

 The morning was a little misty — real pigeon weather — and they 

 were flying so low — within thirty feet of me — that my attention 

 was called to them by the loud rush of wings. Mourning doves 

 are out of the question here, and the only other possibility is a 

 compact flight of blue homing pigeons ; but I have seen no such 

 flock of homers before. I am familiar with homing pigeons and 

 do not think they flock or fly quite like the wild bird. At the 



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