THE AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION 



253 



work of elementary agriculture that 

 this statement is made. The writer be- 

 lieves that the corn shows and poultry 

 shows and all such work in our coun- 

 try schools is of inestimable service to 

 the pupils and to agriculture. It is, 

 instead, with an intent to strengthen 

 the weakest point in the teaching of 

 elementary agriculture that the follow- 

 ing suggestions are given : 



If the teacher learns to base her agri- 

 cultural work upon nature-study she 

 can, to a large extent, overcome the 

 above mentioned difficulty. Thus 

 when the boys are growing corn, she 

 can give them a series of experiments 

 to show the nature of the corn plant; 

 and when they are working out their 

 stock problems, she can give them some 

 lessons which will help them to a better 

 understanding of domesticated animals, 

 and put the work on a more interest- 

 ing basis. Then she may lead the pu- 

 pils to study carefully the little four- 

 legged tenants of the farm to learn 

 whether they are paying rent or not; 

 and encourage likewise a study of the 

 birds and insects to discover what they 

 are actually doing to help or injure the 

 farmer; and if she leads the pupils to 

 examine their fence, corners and road- 

 sides to find what the weed squatters 

 are doing, she will find there an almost 

 unlimited amount of subject-matter, all 

 bearing directly upon the farm ; and at 

 the same time she will be broadening 

 the interests, knowledge, intelligence 

 and powers of observation of her 

 pupils. 



It is safe to assert that there is not 

 on the farm a plant, tree, bird, animal, 

 or insect that is not doing something, 

 in its own small way, to that farm. 

 And, if elementary agriculture be thus 

 correlated with nature-study, the les- 

 sons may be of quite as fundamental 

 importance and at the same time of 

 never-failing interest. There is no 

 danger that this use of nature-study 

 will narrow the child's ideas, because 

 it covers such a wide range of subjects 

 that it will result in the young farmer 

 becoming a field naturalist as well as 

 a more practical agriculturist. 



Life is not all for the pocketbook and 

 stomach. On the farms there are heads 

 and hearts of human being's. 



A Plea for Physiophily. 



BY FREDERICK EEROY SARGENT, CAM- 

 BRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. 



It is not unfair that while lovers Oi 

 books have the convenient name of bib- 

 liophil, lovers of nature have to go 

 nameless for lack of such a word? It 

 cannot be truly said that we may get 

 along well enough with the words al- 

 ready in our language. Neither "na- 

 turalist" nor "nature-lover" really 

 answers the purpose. The former does 

 not belong to a person whose interest 

 in natural phenomena is not scientific 

 yet who nevertheless may be ardently 

 devoted to the enjoyment of out door 

 nature. To such a person "nature- 

 lover" does apply to be sure; but 

 this expression is rather a phrase than 

 a word, and does not yield a good set 

 of derivatives. As matters stand the 

 language provides us with only more 

 or less unwieldy phrases for use when 

 referring to our love of natural things 

 as we find them out-of-doors, to our 

 joy in being with them and watching 

 them, and to the wholesome delight we 

 derive from them irrespective of artistic 

 or scientific considerations. 



I suggest that the word physiophily 

 and it is obvious derivatives would 

 serve a useful purpose in our speech. 

 Its meaning would be evident to any 

 one recalling the words physiography 

 and bibliophily. 



That the word physiophily did not 

 get into our dictionaries long ago is 

 doubtless due to the late development 

 o f the separate interest for which it 

 stands. Only recently has there grown 

 up a physiophilic literature, of which 

 this magazine is a typical example. 

 Now that the interest represented by 

 this body of writing has come to such 

 a clear consciousness of itself it surely 

 deserves to have a name comparable to 

 those which distinguish the love of 

 books and the scientific study of natural 

 phenomena in general. 



I reckon as among the most profit- 

 able years of my life one spent in the 

 country because of ill health which yet 

 permitted my being much out-of- 

 doors. In the autumn I watched 

 nature's ways of preparing for winter, 

 looked into buds to see how they 

 were packed, and into various fruits 

 to see how their seeds might be 

 scattered. Through the winter I en- 



