246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



school who is not interested in nature. That is what we start 

 with. That is the first question we ask, are you interested in 

 nature ? If you are not interested in nature and in nature studies, 

 you will receive practically no benefit from coming to our 

 school. We do not teach music ; we do not teach mathematics ; 

 we do not teach drawing; but we teach nature studies. We 

 teach practical agriculture. Are you interested in this subject? 

 Then we go further than that. We ask what class of nature 

 study are you interested in? Insects? Very well, we will 

 teach you about insects. Birds? Very well, we will teach 

 you birds. Plant life and botany? Very well, then we will 

 teach you botany. Are you interested in farm animals and 

 domestic animals of the various sorts ? Very well, then we will 

 teach you in regard to domestic animals. And it is a signifi- 

 cant thing about our policy, or the thing that we have ob- 

 served, that these nature teachers do not stay very long in any 

 one school. Now suppose in a location you have a teacher 

 that is an adept at any one of these topics. You may have one 

 that is interested in one particular topic and learns how to 

 teach that well, and you may have the next year a teacher that 

 is interested in botany, or the next one that is interested in 

 animals, and so on in the course of a few years you will get 

 all of these subjects touched upon by people who have the in- 

 terest in the general subject very closely and warmly at heart. 

 Now it seems to me that that is pedagogically solid, and 

 the results we are going to get are going to be pedagogically 

 practical and good. I do not use this term " pedagogue " in 

 quite the sense that it was understood in the old days when 

 they called a man a pedagogue who, in the course of time, 

 could not do anything else but teach. Generally our first 

 teachers were busy fitting young men for college, and they 

 were pedagogues if they still continued to be teachers at forty 

 or fifty years of age. I use the term " pedagogue " in a differ- 

 ent classification. When I say that a thing is pedagogically 

 solid I mean from the standpoint of sound principles of educa- 



