796 Rural School Leaflet 



college to extend the agricultural applications of nature-study. In later 

 years the content of the work has had very direct relation to farm-life 

 questions. The time has now come, we think, when we can devote 

 practically all our energies to this application. It is the purpose of this 

 leaflet to aid the teacher in the rural school to work out the practical 

 daily problem of teaching agricultural subjects. 



In doing this, we merely confine ourselves to our more special field. 

 The general nature-study outlook is fundamental, and we shall continue 

 to emphasize it; but we feel that the appreciation of this outlook is now 

 so well established as to allow us to specialize. The Education Depart- 

 ment has issued syllabi for agriculture and nature-study; we desire to 

 be useful in applying them to the conditions and needs of country life. 

 Schools here and there are ready for agricultiural work: we want to 

 help. 



In making these statements we have in mind that the common 

 schools do not teach trades and professions. We do not approach the 

 subject primarily from an occupational point of view, but from the 

 educational and spiritual; that is, the man should know his work and his 

 environment. The mere giving of information about agricultural ob- 

 jects and practices can have very little good result with children. The 

 spirit is worth more than the letter. Some of the hard and dry tracts 

 on farming would only add one more task to the teacher and the pupil 

 if they were introduced into the school, making the new subject in time 

 as distasteful as arithmetic and grammar often are. In this new 

 agricultural work we need to be exceedingly careful that we do not go 

 too far, and that we do not lose our sense of relationships and values. 

 Introducing the word agriculture into the scheme of studies means very 

 little; what is taught, and particularly how it is taught, is of the great- 

 est moment. We hope that no country-life teaching will be so narrow 

 as to put only technical farm subjects before the pupil. 



We need also to be careful not to introduce subjects merely because 

 practical grown-up farmers think that the subjects are useful and there- 

 fore should be taught. Farming is one thing and teaching is another. 

 What appeals to the man may not appeal to the child. What is most use- 

 ful to the man may or may not be most useful in training the mind of a 

 pupil in school. The teacher, as well as the farmer, must always be con- 

 sulted in respect to the content and the method of teaching agricultural 

 subjects. We must always be alert to see that the work has living 

 interest to the pupil, rather than to grown-ups, and to be on guard that it 

 does not becom^e lifeless. Probably the greatest mistake that any teacher 

 makes is in supposing that what is interesting to him is therefore inter- 

 esting to his pupils. 



