342 State IloiiiniJ/ural Society. 



In conclusion, I may ask. how far arc we? Really we have ad- 

 vanced but a little wa}'. It is only ten years since the first actual labora- 

 tory for natural science in a high school was equipped in Missouri. T 

 mean a laboratory conforming to existing ideals of science teaching. It 

 is but nine years since your present speaker, directed and supported by 

 the Secretary of this Association, fitted up in a simple way the second one 

 of such laboratories for a high school in the State of Missouri. The 

 three great cities wield a powerful influence. Two of them are probably 

 friendly to organized science in elementary schools. One of them has 

 made some advancement in the direction of such science. It has aban- 

 doned part of the cyclopedic geographies ; it takes the children to the hill- 

 sides and fields; it opens their eyes to the things that are to be seen and 

 heard and understood ; it takes classes into the blacksmith shop and into 

 the big factories where children record their observations and for weeks 

 thereafter work into organized form their observations and the inform- 

 ation which they get from books. Unfortunately, as I see it, one of our 

 large cities is rather lethargic though friendly to real science and one 

 of them is not merely lethargic but actually unfriendly to every movement 

 which goes outside the traditional, mechanical and conventional text- 

 book regime. 



At least four State institutions are unequivocally and heartily work- 

 ing for this wholesome movement which is to open the avenues to the 

 consciousness of our sons and daughters. The State University and the 

 State Normal schools are doing what they can in behalf of this great 

 movement. Many scholarly and courageous men and women of oui- 

 State who see the right are struggling to do the right. Mediaevalism, 

 conservatism and the examination machine, inch by inch, are yielding. 



In the State Normal school at Kirksville there is an Agricultural 

 laboratory for nine months of observation, experimentation and general- 

 ization by students. The course is elective. The department is crowded 

 to its full capacity. Men and women from eighteen to forty years of 

 age take this course of instruction that they may go out into the schools 

 of Missouri and give it again to Missouri children. I am pleased to re- 

 port that the demand for such te&chers is greater than we can supply. 

 But you ask : What can the elementary schools do with science by lab- 

 oratory methods? Last year the seventh and eighth grade children of 

 our Training School were given in our Agricultural laboratory nearly 

 the same course as the grown up men and women. They performed 

 nearly the same experiments as were given the men and women. Wc 

 obtained from them nearly as good generalizations as from the full 

 grown students. Moreover, the children were delighted with the 

 experiments and with the work. 



