88 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



ner\^es of taste which are a powerful aid to digestion. No one advises 

 the eating of a h^t of distasteful food for the sake of increasing tne 

 strength of the stomach. Why should this be insisted upon in the use 

 of food for the brain?" 



Surely there is no virtue in adding useless burdens to the useful 

 work of teacher and pupil, especially when the unnecessary burden crip- 

 ples the child for all future activity. I would not add agriculture to the 

 volume of work already required in the schools, but I would use it 

 wisely as a means of "redirecting" and revivifying all the useful work 

 of the school. 



You will guess, then, that I would not prescribe agriculture merely 

 as an appetizer for inducing the mastication and digestion of the more 

 important and necessary studies of the curriculum. Rather, I should 

 regard that study which most immediately relates the pupil to his 

 natural environment and introduces him to all the other live subjects 

 in the school as itself the most important ; and let it lead him to see that 

 the others become important and necessary to the fuller understanding 

 and use of his own environment as a means of constant self-education. 



So I would never justify the use of agricultural teaching merely to 

 kindle the curiosity of children, merely to add zest to their book study, 

 ' or to reconcile them to the tasks of formal instruction — and so treating 

 it only as an incidental accessory of school work — but I would consist- 

 ently work toward that coming day when the facts of the child 's environ- 

 ment, the intense personal interests of his own home life, the responses 

 which he makes, or ought to make, to his environment, and the modifi- 

 cations which he can bring to pass in that environment — I say, teach 

 towards the day when these considerations shall be recognized as the 

 real thing in education, and when books and methods and curricula 

 shall come to be regarded at their true value as incidental and subordi- 

 nate considerations. 



But the question will occur, Can the teachers now in service in the 

 schools teach the agricultural environment of the school without ac- 

 quiring special training wliicli takes them out of the common school? 

 Or must we, rather, wail until a new generation of teachers can be 

 trained for this work? 



Well, it is quite possible, that some of those who are rated as good 

 teachers will not easily regain their places if they step out of the ranks 

 now — and they may not succeed in establishing a more pleasing engage- 

 ment. But it is not necessary that teachers now in the schools shall take 

 a technical course of work in absentia from the rural school in order to 

 teach agriculture intelligently and effectively As Editor Poe of the 

 Progressive Agriculturist puts it: 



