Summer Meeting. 105 



experiments, applying material resources at hand, and designed to prove 

 the scientific fundamental ideas of the most important agricultural 

 operations. Children should learn the reason for these operations, with 

 ■3U explanation of the accompanying phenomena. 



In no case should a list of precepts, definitions, or agricultural 

 recipes be committed to memorj, Bv the experimental melhod they 

 should learn the conditions essential for the growth of garden vegeta- 

 bles, the reasons for habitual work in common farming, fmd the principal 

 hygienic rules for the care of man and animals. 



The teacher would pursue a wrong course in the instruction in agri- 

 culture, should he only require the children to study and recite from a 

 text-book. Instruction, to be of value, must be bv observation and l)v 

 simple experiment. Only by placing phenomena before them for ob- 

 servation can children be taught to observe and fix in their minds the 

 fundamental ideas upon which modern agricultural science rests. 



COURSE OF STUDY. 



For children up to the age of nine or ten years, object lessons, con- 

 tinued on the plan practiced in kindergartens, special attention being 

 given to objects from the garden, domestic animals and insects and birds 

 most numerous in the localitv. 



AYith older children it is impossible to understand even the simplest 

 phenomena in agriculture without some definite understanding of the 

 three states of matter and the properties of each. A child that does not 

 know air as a material substance, f.nd knows some of its properties can 

 not understand the functions of nutrition and respiration. Experiments 

 showing the displacement of water by air, collecting and measuring 

 g-ases, preparing oxygen, showing that air contains oxygen can be made 

 at slight expense. 



In the fall and winter, animals mav be studied. The striking facts 

 in the histories of domestic animals, the varieties of dogs, horses and 

 other domestic animals are of interest. 



Comparison of dogs and cats, horses and mules, hens and ducks may 

 be made. The habits of domestic fowls, of migratory birds, the meta- 

 morphosis of frogs, the silk worm, bees, all these are subjects full of 

 interest. • 



