IX. HOME NATURE-STUDY FOR TEACHERS. 



I have the pleasure of submitting to you the following report of 

 the work done in the correspondence course of Home Nature-study 

 during the past year. 



During the fall of 1904 our leaflets were, with the permission of 

 the State Department of Public Instruction, prepared especially for 

 work in the training classes in the various public schools of the state. 

 But owing to the fact that no list of these classes was furnished us 

 until December, when the work for the year had been arranged and 

 planned by the training-class teachers, we found it too late to do the 

 work we hoped to do. In all w^e had 25 training classes, and these 

 took the work because the teachers had been using our leaflets 

 during previous years. Most of these classes kept up the work for 

 the year in a most gratifying manner. 



During the year we issued lessons for eight months in four leaflets. 

 At first it was intended to send these leaflets only to those who 

 answered the questions contained in them and sent the same to us. 

 But the requests for the leaflets were so numerous from teachers who 

 had no time to do the w'ork, that we yielded to the pressure and sent 

 out our lessons as folloW'S: 



October-November 1 ,918 copies 



December-January 1 ,945 copies 



February-March 1 , 968 copies 



April-May 2,003 copies 



As each of these leaflets covered several distinct topics our work 

 aggregated the placing of 23,000 practical, simplified lessons in 

 nature-study into the hands of the teachers of New York State. Of 

 these, 2,000 were written out and returned to us, giving evidence of 

 excellent work. In summing up last year's work, I find that we had 

 few^er regular pupils sending in monthly answers than ever before, 

 but, on the other hand, we had a greater demand for the leaflets than 

 ever before. 



At the beginning of the present school year an attempt was made to 

 confine our work to the purely rural schools. One hundred and fifty 

 letters were sent to the students who attended our short course last 

 winter asking their help, and 600 letters were sent to the secretaries 

 of the Granges of New York State asking their aid in interesting the 

 teachers of the district schools in this work. In consequence of these 



