222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



will be destroyed by one codling moth in a year ? And then to 

 this : If the downy woodpecker eats one codling moth every 

 day during the six months from October to April — i8o days 

 — what will be the value of one such bird to an orchard ? 



Well, I will guarantee if the children will work out prob- 

 lems like that they will have more respect for the woodpecker. 

 When you come to substitute a problem like that for some of 

 the stuff, it gives a boy or girl the germ of an idea that is valu- 

 able. That is not the way to teach it, however. We want to 

 give them in every school something that will come close home 

 to them, which shall not only interest, but which shall convey 

 instruction which will be of practical value. 



Then there is a good lesson which follows. Some of this 

 / is important. Some of it is good material. Some of it should 

 be left out. Take Lesson 13, in reference to domestic animals; 

 that is a good lesson. Then there are twenty-two pages in 

 this book on how to tie knots. Finally there is a lesson on 

 feeding calves. 



That is a sample of some of the nature study that is pre- 

 scribed. It is done all over the country. Public school teach- 

 ers, who have no idea what to do, do those things that in most 

 cases they ought not to do. There is not an exercise in there 

 that is not worth something if it is properly handled. I won- 

 der sometimes whether the individual who wrote .the book ever 

 saw a farm or a farmer boy, or, if he did, what his idea must 

 have been ; whether he had any real practical knowledge of 

 farming operations, or whether he thought that the farmers 

 of today were living back thirteen or fourteen centuries. 



Think, if you please, of the people who are going into the 

 colleges of this country. What proportion of the children of 

 the public schools ever get to the college? Only a very few 

 of them, comparatively speaking, get into the high school, and 

 a very much smaller number ever get into a college, and of 

 those who do get into college how many of them ever get into 

 the study of the natural sciences, or physical sciences, where 

 these things are brought up? There are some things that are 

 so important that everybody ought to know them, and that is 

 the purpose of the public schools. There are those things that 

 make so much for weal or woe in the life of every individual 

 that it is a public obligation to see that they find them out, and 

 that they find them out properly. Very much good can be done 



