Rural School Leaflet 797 



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

 which is; to see accurate!}^; to reason correctly from what is seen; to 

 establish a bond of sympathy with the object or phenomenon that is 

 studied. . One cannot see accurately unless one has the object itself. 

 If the pupil studies com, he should have com in his hands and he should 

 make his own observ^ations and draw his own conclusions; if he studies 

 cows, he should make his observations on cows and not on what some one 

 has said about cows. So far as possible, all nature-study work should be 

 conducted in the open, where the objects are. If specimens are needed, let 

 the pupils collect them. See that observations are made on the crops in the 

 field as well as on the specimens. Nature-study is an outdoor process : the 

 schoolroom should be merely an adjunct to the out-of-doors, rather than 

 the out-of-doors an adjimct to the schoolroom, as it is at present. 



A laboratoiy of living things is a necessary part of the best nature- 

 study work. It is customary to call this laboratory a school-garden. 

 We need to distinguish three types of school-garden: (i) The orna- 

 mented or planted grounds; this should be a part of every school enter- 

 prise, for the premises should be attractive to pupils and they should 

 stand as an example in the community. (2) The formal plat-garden, 

 in which a variety of plants is grown and the pupils are taught the usual 

 handicraft; this is the prevailing kind of school-gardening. (3) The 

 problem-garden, in which certain specific questions are to be studied, 

 in much the spirit that problems are studied in the indoor laboratories; 

 these are little known at present, but their number will increase as school 

 work develops in efficiency; in rural districts, for example, such direct 

 problems as the rust of beans, the blight of potatoes, the testing of 

 varieties of oats, the study of species of grasses, the observation of effect 

 of fertilizers, may well be undertaken when conditions are fa\'orable, and 

 it will matter very little whether the area has the ordinary "garden" 

 appearance. In time, ample grounds will be as much a part of a school 

 as the buildings or seats now are. Some of the school-gardening work 

 may be done at the homes of the pupils, and in many cases this is the only 

 kind that is now possible; but the farther removed the laboratory, the 

 less direct the teaching. 



To introduce agriculture into any elementary rural school it is first 

 necessary to have a walling teacher. The trustees should be able to 

 settle this point. The second step is to begin to study the commonest 

 and most available object concerning which the teacher has any kind of 

 knowledge. The third step is to begin to connect or organize these 

 observations into a method or system. This simple beginning made, 

 the work ought to grow. It may or may not be necessary to organize a 

 special class in agriculture; the geography, arithmetic, reading, manual 



