I905-] DISCUSSION. 233 



portant problems which wc must solve if we are to keep up our 

 country life in the State of Connecticut. For ten years in my 

 own community every year a few people have moved away 

 because the school was not up to what they desired, and they 

 were just the people whom we could least spare. 



I think we can do no better thing this afternoon than to 

 pass a resolution asking- our State Board of Education for the 

 enlargement of the course of nature study in our public schools 

 along the lines suggested here. 



Mr. McLean. Mr. President, I speak as one who came in 

 here this afternoon interested in the work of teaching and to 

 find out a little as to what was coming in the future. I had 

 a curiosity to know what was being proposed in this line. 

 After listening to the lecture I felt as though I had been read- 

 ing one of Browning's poems. I don't know exactly where 

 I am. If I understood the speaker he did not advise at first 

 doing what he advised us to do near the close of his lecture. 

 If we were to do many of the things that he advised we should 

 certainly come pretty nearly into the line of technical agri- 

 culture, and that is something which I did not understand him 

 to recommend. 



But the poor teachers ; I wonder if any of us really think 

 what a wonderful being a teacher must be at the present time, 

 and even more so in the future. The time has been when we 

 had our colleges, our art schools, our conservatories of music, 

 our agricultural and technical schools, but now, if I under- 

 stand him aright, many of the things which it has been their 

 particular province to teach have got to be combined in one 

 little tired head of a country school teacher. The school 

 teachers all dread it. They don't know today how they can 

 possibly do what they are being asked to do. Every circle 

 of people having certain things that they are particularly in- 

 terested in think they should be taught in the public schools. 

 Some people are sure that drawing must be taught in the 

 common schools. Others are verv sure that music should 



