STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. IO3 



They don't see things from the right attitude. It reminds me 

 of a very homely illustration which I once heard a Prohibition 

 speaker use. A farmer was driving to the hayfield, sitting on 

 his hayrack. As he drove by his neighbor's house, his neigh- 

 bor's dog ran out, jumped up and attempted to bite him. The 

 farmer on the spur of the moment took his pitchfork, drove the 

 tines into the dog and killed him. The neighbor was very much 

 concerned about it, came out and expostulated with him warmly, 

 ending by saying, "Why didn't you take the other end of the 

 fork?" The farmer scratched his head a moment and replied, 

 "Why didn't the dog come 'tother end to?" The question was 

 one of attitude. Now the picture we have just seen expresses 

 the attitude of a boy who has been told that he has got to go out 

 and do that thing or he will get a whipping. He has not been 

 told that he can have a share in the product, that that row of 

 strawberries is going to yield fine fruit and that he may have a 

 box to sell, or a box to eat, or a box to give his friend, or any- 

 thing of that kind. There is no inducement, nothing attractive 

 in the proposition. In this illustration we have our boy with 

 quite a different attitude toward the work he has to perform. 

 This man with the hoe comes along jubilantly and thinks it fun, 

 and it is altogether, or largely, the point of view, the way we 

 look at things. 



Illustration : Neglected School Grounds. 



I have tried to emphasize the necessity of beginning nature 

 work in the home, but the school of course is the great cultural 

 cradle of our race, and there we ought to begin the work. Oh, 

 what surroundings! I don't know how Maine is, I don't know 

 whether it would be possible to get a picture of a schoolhouse 

 of this kind in Maine, but I find it not difficult to pick them up 

 quite occasionally in different parts of the country. What 

 inspiration is there for students to come to bare, ungarnished 

 school yards and leave with anything else in their heads or hearts 

 than that which has been pounded into them in the ordinary 

 pedagogic manner. So one of the ways in which we have been 

 attempting to introduce nature study into schools is by improving 

 the school grounds. 



[Then followed a series of pictures showing how school 

 grounds might be improved.] 

 27 



