966 Rural School Leaflet 



and put it in my pocket. After some time I came to a district school, 

 knocked, was warmly welcomed, and found a seat among the little first- 

 grade children. There were twenty-two girls and boys in the school. 

 After I had been there a while, the teacher asked me to talk to them. I 

 was not sure that I had anything worth while to say, but in my pocket 

 were the flowers; so I asked how many had watched the flowers blooming 

 far into the fall and what flowers they were. One boy said " daisy " 

 and a girl said " dandelion." 



" Both right," I said, " but surely there are others." 



No one knew, so I told them that I had ten or twelve in my pocket, 

 and that as I took each one out we would study it and name it, putting 

 the name on the blackboard. All were eager to see, and our list grew 

 longer and longer. Besides the daisy and the dandelion, we had red, white, 

 sweet, and alsike clover, yarrow, wild carrot, narrow-leaf plantain, teasle, 

 wild mustard, and yellow melilot. As it was near closing time, we all 

 went out of doors for a few minutes and into a big field back of the school, 

 where we found many of these flowers growing and were able to study 

 them in their complete and natural form. Thus we learned something 

 new, and we shall long remember that little time together. 



Some day I may visit your school. Should I do so, there would be 

 much for us to talk about, especially those things that you are studying 

 this year: the nuthatch, hen, cow, potato, potato beetle, lady beetle, 

 and locust tree. Each of these will unfold new wonders to those who 

 study it carefully, and you should not let the year go by without becom- 

 ing familiar with one or more of them. Always keep in mind that the 

 truest knowledge is to be gained by examining the object itself. In 

 studying the hen, for example, let one boy bring a hen to school for the 

 day. Have some sort of a screened box to keep her in, and observe her 

 appearance, general shape, color, kind of comb; notice how she eats, 

 drinks, scratches, preens her feathers; listen to her different songs; in 

 short, learn all that there is to learn by observing intelligently. 



I am getting many, many letters every day from my young friends, 

 and am most pleased to know of the great number of interesting and useful 

 things that you are doing. We have received an ear of corn from many 

 schools, showing that they celebrated Corn Day. If your school had 

 Corn Day exercises and you have not yet sent the prize ear of corn, do 

 not fail to send it at once. The November leaflet contains infor- 

 mation about this. 



It is our desire to make the leaflet for boys and girls as interesting and 

 instructive as possible. We should like to publish some of the actual 

 experiences that you have with the nature work. Will you not write 

 me fully whenever anything of special interest happens? Perhaps other 



