678 Rural School Leaflet. 



nature-study sentiment to have enabled us to confine ourselves to the 

 agricultural aim ; but this sentiment had to be created or quickened, and 

 we have tried to contribute our part tow^ard accomplishing this result. 

 At first it was impossible to secure much hearing for the agricultural 

 subjects. Year by year such hearing has been more readily given, and 

 the work has been turned in this direction as rapidly as the conditions 

 would admit, — for it is the special mission of an agricultural college to 

 extend the agricultural applications of nature-study. In later years the 

 content of the work has had very direct relation to farm-life questions. 

 The time has now come, we think, when we can devote practically all 

 our energies to this application ; and we therefore discontinue the Junior 

 Naturalist Monthly and issue the Cornell Rural School Leaflet. 

 It is the purpose of this Leaflet to aid the teacher in the rural school to 

 work out the practical daily problem of teaching agricultural subjects. 



In doing this, we merely confine ourselves to our more special field. 

 The general nature-study outlook is fundamental, and we shall continue 

 to emphasize it ; but we feel that the appreciation of this outlook is now 

 so well established as to allow us to specialize. The Education Depart- 

 ment has issued syllabi for agriculture and nature-study ; we desire to be 

 useful in applying them to the conditions and needs of country life. 

 Schools here and there are ready for agricultural work ; we want to help. 



In making these statements we have it in mind that the common 

 schools do not teach trades and professions. We do not approach the 

 subject primarily from an occupational point of view, but from the 

 educational and spiritual ; that is, the man should know his work and his 

 environment. The mere giving of information about agricultural objects 

 and practices can have very little good result with children. The spirit 

 is worth more than the letter. Some of the hard and dry tracts on 

 farming would only add one more task to the teacher and the pupil 

 if they were introduced to the school, making the new subject in time 

 as distasteful as arithmetic and grammar often are. In this new agri- 

 cultural work we need to be exceedingly careful that we do not go 

 too far, and that we do not lose our sense of relationships and values. 

 Introduucing the word agriculture into the scheme of studies means very 

 little ; what is taught, and particularly how it is taught, is of the greatest 

 moment. We hope that no country-life teaching will be so narrow as 

 to put only technical farm subjects before the pupil. 



We need also to be careful not to introduce subjects merely because 

 practical grown-up farmers think that the subjects are useful and there- 

 fore should be taught. Farming is one thing and teaching is another. 

 What appeals to the man may not appeal to the child. What is most 

 useful to the man may or may not be most useful in training tiie mind 



