An Effort to Help the Farmer. 255 



has been suggested has received careful consideration. Our con- 

 clusion is that the most efficient way of reaching the young is 

 through what we call nature-study. 



It is commonly said that agriculture should be taught in rural 

 schools. This may come in time with the older scholars ; but 

 the first thing to be taught is how to see, how to reason from 

 what one sees, and to love and appreciate the natural world. 

 That is, the first thing is a training nature-ward ; later the train- 

 ing may be applied to specific problems, to farming. Again, there 

 are very few teachers who are competent to teach agriculture in 

 the common schools, even if they had a good text-book. We 

 must teach the teacher as well as the pupil. Still again, the 

 primary school is not the place in which to teach trades and pro- 

 fessions. We do not teach law or medicine or engineering in 

 the common schools : these are subjects to be taken up after the 

 pupil has had good mental training. There is little use in tell- 

 ing a pupil about duck-raising until he knows a duck. 



In the hands of most teachers, the teaching of agriculture 

 would be instructing in mere ways of doing things, but this 

 is only the giving of information ; it is not education. How to 

 plant potatoes, when to cut corn, the best variet3' of wheat, — 

 these matters do not interest children particularly, and thej^ are 

 different for every different 3'ear and locality. The real things 

 to teach are wh}^ potatoes should be planted so and so, why corn 

 should be cut at a certain stage of its maturity, what are the 

 principles which underlie the selection of a variety of wheat. 

 These matters are fundamental in ever}^ season and in every 

 locality. The pupil is taught to think out the problem for him- 

 self. But where are the teachers to do this work ? Certainly 

 not in the countr}^ schools, for the country schools have the 

 poorest teachers. 



a. NATURE -STUDY. 



The outgrowth of our present nature-study methods from the 

 itinerant schools of horticulture and the visiting of rural 

 schools, is set forth in Bulletins 122 and 137. The nature-study 

 work is progressing along several lines, each of which may be 

 mentioned. 



