CONNOLLY] READING OF THE BAROMETER 101- 



rausevuns and other supplementary educational agencies the 

 material, and to go slow — -to let their next point of attack be known 

 by the museums before introducing new features into the schools. 

 And it is of the utmost importance that both organizations 

 should educate their public by wise publicity as they go along. 

 I have watched this movement, which has been glacial, rather 

 than torrential in its pace, for thirty odd years and I have seen 

 the best cooperations in the world debouch into a morass for the 

 lack of this feature. Fifteen or twenty years ago Superintendent 

 Powell of Washington, through the good offices and connections 

 of his brother, Major Powell of the Geologic Survey, had all the 

 scientific corps of the Govermnent in the service of the Washington 

 schools. The teachers w^ere taken on excurisons and instructed 

 in their schools by botanists, geologists, bird-, beast-, and fish-men; 

 the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Weather Bureau gave of 

 their best; classes sketched in the parks, visited out-door features 

 and public buildings; and all sorts of things were lent and used. 

 But when a local poHtician wanted an excuse for attacking Mr. 

 Powell the parents were, at the most, vaguely sympathetic. A 

 superintendent who thinks children are being diverted from the 

 true aims of education when they are encouraged to see what they 

 look at, feel what they handle, and hear what they listen to is 

 in most places in no danger of losing his position for his views. 

 The old road is still the safe road. 



As to the grange, I speak with the diffidence of ignorance, but 

 every grange has, besides the grange master, a grange lecturer — 

 the educational and intellectual leader. And these lecturers 

 belong to a kind of mildly persuasive hierarchy. They hold 

 meetings where they get inspiration and exchange experiences. 

 There are many experiments being made in single localities 

 with rural schools, and from these centers the virus is slowly 

 spreading upward. Were it injected into the arteries, the trans- 

 formation might be made more rapid. From what I heard at the 

 New Jersey meetings, I can aver that the thing called Domestic 

 Science, closely correlated with the alimentary nature of man, 

 is much cultivated in the grange. 



I have now to suggest the two possible ways which it seems to 

 me promise for nature-study best progress in the elementary 

 schools. Neither is entirely new. 



Wherever the alternating, or Gary, school is tried there is a 



