70 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ences that the teacher should suggest the page or chapters in reference 

 books where interesting information on the lesson in hand might be 

 found. Pointed allusion to the desirability of having this reading done 

 would also be made, with the result usually that while some of the 

 students did the reading most of them did not. 



The second method prevailed for a few years, in which abstracts of 

 what was read were made by the students; these to be handed in, con- 

 tents noted, and corrections made by 'the teacher. Measurement of a 

 student's reference work can be made by this method, provided his 

 notes are personally collected; but the conclusion ultimately comes that 

 note-taking is the end of the student's efforts. He simply gleans ' 

 through the reference for the purpose of making notes. The method 

 now employed is to duplicate the reference books to the extent of the 

 demand by the class, and to require recitations upon references the 

 same as upon text-books. It is believed that every desirable end from 

 reference reading can be attained in this way. 



The subject of political science is required during two terms from 

 women and agricultural students, and is optional during one term to 

 mechanical students. This subject attends the study of history like 

 language to literature or literature to language. "History is past 

 politics, politics is present history." I adopt without alteration the 

 following statement from Professor Hinsdale as to why civics should 

 be taught: "The aim," he says, ''is to teach certain facts and prin- 

 ciples relating to governments in general and our own in particular in 

 such a manner as to enlarge the intelligence of the student and inspire 

 him with a spirit of civic duty and patriotism." 



Some evolution of pedagogic method in teaching this subject has 

 taken place during a period of ten years. It has been proven it seems 

 to me, that the dictum of proceeding from the part to the whole, from 

 the particular to the general, has no place in teaching civics. This 

 transference of a principle which seems to work well in some of the 

 physical sciences proves a failure, I believe, when carried into the ab- 

 stract studies, like political geography, civics, political economy, and 

 history ; and text-books in civics are no longer written which begin 

 with the township, county, and city governments before studying state 

 and national ones. The insufficiency of working from the known to 

 the unknown, from the particular to the general, as applied to the 

 study of civics, arises from the equipment of the student's mind when 

 he undertakes this subject. Mentally, he has a set of governmental 

 symbols derived from reading or hearsay which stand for institutions 

 and activities of a higher type than those found in township and county 

 and state governments. It is the doings of congress and the president 

 that he has heard of continually. They are the parts of government 

 he knows something about, has idealized, and is interested in, and with 

 which he feels at home in beginning his study. It is, then, not with the 

 highest forms of government — like international relations, for instance 

 — nor with the lowest type, like the school district, that the teaching of 

 this subject should begin. Something intermediate is preferable. 



Political economy is tauglit through two terras, and is a senior elec- 

 tive for women and agriculturals and an optional during two terms 

 to juniors and mechanicals. Within the ten years that this subject 



