262 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [4:9— dhc., .908 



If now we add to this matter of nature contact and personal 

 influence the idea of producing something, as we do in agriculture, 

 we have then awakened the three strongest impulses of which the 

 ambitious student is capable; his observing powers, his ability to 

 exert controlling influences over the processes of nature, and in 

 the end to really produce something that- had no existence before. 



The average teacher can have little conception of the natural 

 impulses of the masses of the people in the direction of produc- 

 tion, nor can she have a full comprehension of the importance of 

 this impulse in a people such as ours. The great problem which 

 faces 99 people out of 100, or which ought to face them, is how to 

 make a living, that is, how to produce enough to meet the ex- 

 penses of their food, clothing and shelter, which are the three 

 great physical requirements of civilization. If we are to have a 

 system of universal education, meaning by that a system that is 

 to apply to all people, then it must touch them at this point, first 

 of all, because it is a fundamental requirement that all must meet, 

 or ought to meet, before they are ready for higher things or are 

 entitled to possess them. 



Education, therefore, is no escape from this fundamental obli- 

 gation that rests upon all of us, and we are not to ignore this 

 obligation nor forget its presence by failing to mention it in polite 

 society. It would be funny, were it not pathetic, to contemplate 

 the eager earnestness with which a certain type of so-called educa- 

 ted people worship the intellectual, and profess to regard the 

 commercial and physical things of life as sordid and mean, when 

 the largest of all the problems of life which they themselves live 

 in common with the rest of us, is to meet the balance at the end 

 of the month with the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick 

 maker. 



All this means, it seems to me, that we have developed the 

 matter of nature-study until it has reached the field of agricul- 

 ture ; in other words, that it has come into contact with this great 

 throbbing necessity of ours to take a hand in the affairs of nature 

 and thereby earn our living. This form of nature-study is espe- 

 cially valuable, it seems to me, because it serves us well as an 

 introduction to real life afterwards. Not only the information 

 that is secured but the impulses that are engendered are all in the 

 right direction, and a person trained through such experience not 

 only possesses a larger stock of knowledge than the one who has 



