788 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



these beliefs it recommends to this conference that the managers of the 

 Teachers' Reading Circle of the State be requested to place iipon their 

 list of books for the ensuing year "The Nature Study Idea" by Prof. 

 Liberty H. Bailey, Director of the College of Agriculture of Cornell Uni- 

 versity. Published by Doubleday, Page & Co.; $1 net. No more illuminat- 

 ing and suggestive study of the movement to put the child in sympathy 

 with nature and his environments, to the end that his life may be stronger 

 and more resourceful, has as yet been presented. 



It is further recommended that this request to the managers of the 

 Teachers' Reading Circle be urged as strongly as possible, since, in the 

 opinion of your committee, in a greater degree than any other recent 

 movement, will the Nature Study movement touch the masses with a new 

 educational impulse. ' 



Second. The committee further recommends that the managers of 

 the Children's Reading Circle include the First Principles of Agriculture, 

 by Goff & Mayne, and Agriculture for Beginners, by Burket, Stevens & 

 Hill, in the list for the seventh and eighth grades; and further, that this 

 conference recommend these books to those teachers of the State who 

 wish to present the underlying principles of agriculture in a systematic 

 manner. 



Third. Your committee, at the suggestion of the Superintendent, 

 ventures to exceed the letter of its instructions and make the following 

 further recommendations: It recognizes in the work of the State Library 

 Commission in the establishment of traveling libraries one of the great 

 educational movements of the day. and one which promises much for the 

 advancement of the intellectual ideas of the State. It feels, however, 

 that, considering the large percentage of our population engaged in occu- 

 pations bringing them in constant and intimate relations with nature, 

 much effective service might be done by the commission in making these 

 relations sympathetic and helpful. Your committee therefore recom- 

 mends that the State Library Commission be requested to consider the 

 propriety of including in each traveling library a definite percentage of 

 books, say 10 per cent, bearing upon nature in its manifold and important 

 relations to man. It further recommends that the Library Commission, 

 if in its view such a plan is feasible, be requested to put it into opera- 

 tion at as early a date as possible, this latter request being based not 

 merely upon the necessity of some such plan, but also upon its very high 

 intellectual and economic value. 



To make such suggestions to the commission a? little burdensome a? 

 possible, the committee suggests tliai the following list of books b* 

 recommended as meeting the views of this cnnf*>Te'nre under 'R*»tT»m 

 raendation 3. Sixty- four titles suggested: 



