logo • Rural School Leaflet. 



ANIMALS TO BE RECOGNIZED 



In addition to the special study of the horse, any four of the following 

 animals should be recognized and discussed during the year: Donkey, 

 deer, turtle, field mouse, squirrel, woodchuck. Animal life is particularly 

 interesting to the children in the lower grades, and one or two of the 

 animals suggested in the list will make interesting occupants of the 

 terrarium or of any simple cage made for schoolroom use. Some of the 

 boys in the country places will be able to catch a field mouse, which 

 may be kept in the cage while the characteristics are studied. Turtles 

 are very interesting schoolroom pets. The Editor has seen one small 

 turtle have much influence on the lives of a class of fifty children. So 

 interested did they become in this little creature that they took turns 

 in taking it home at night. When the school closed in June all the 

 children went back to a swampy place with the turtle and left it there 

 where it would be most content. 



One advantage in having the children when young come to know 

 animal life is that when they are older they will be able to have a fair 

 attitude to all life. They should be taught honest facts as to whether 

 the animals are helpful or injurious to the farm. A field mouse some- 

 times does much damage to the grain fields or by girdling young fruit 

 trees in winter. Many animals on the farm must be destroyed and 

 the most humane way for this should be taken. A woodchuck and a 

 field mouse are interesting and no boy or girl who comes to know them 

 would ever take pleasure in destroying them in a careless way. 



"All agricultural subjects must be taught by the nature-study method, which 

 is: to see accurately; to reason correctly from what is seen; to establish a bond of 

 sympathy with the object or phenomenon that is studied." 



— L. H. Bailey in The Nature-Study Idea 



"The happiest life has the greatest number of points of contact with the world, 

 and it has the deepest sympathy with everything that is." 



— L. H. Bailey in The Nature-Study Idea 



"Of late years there has been a rapidly growing feeling that we must live closer 

 to nature and make our nature-sentiment vital; and we must of course begin 

 with the child. We attempt to teach this nature-love in the schools, and we 

 call the effort nature-study. It would be better if it were called nature- 

 sympathy." 



— L. H. Bailey in The Nature-Study Idea 



