302 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



ist for two weeks every summer, but 

 she confesses that when she returns 

 to the city she does not dare be a na- 

 ture missionary, because she fears that 

 some of her friends will probably look 

 upon her as an escaped lunatic. What 

 is deepest within her heart, what she 

 has most enjoyed, she does not men- 

 tion, but she tries to make her friends 

 think that she has been as foolish as 

 they are. Yet possibly they practice 

 a similar delicious hypocrisy and speak 

 only of the good board, the dances and 

 the social events. 



Why are we all half ashamed of the 

 things that form the fundamental parts 

 of life? Time and again we hear as a 

 sort of secret confession that the best 

 asset in the heart of any human being 

 is the love for good old Mother Na- 

 ture, yet the speaker does not dare to 

 speak aloud until he has felt his way 

 and found that he has a sympathetic 

 listener. At ArcAdiA we had a sum- 

 mer school. Among the pupils was a 

 boy, a good naturalist, who had been 

 compelled to leave the school because, 

 as his mother explained in confidence, 

 he came home night after night crying 

 as if his heart would break. He said 

 in a burst of confidence, "Mother, I 

 want to be a naturalist, but the boys 

 make fun of me." 



But, after all, is this repressed and 

 reticent love of nature much dififerent 

 from our love for our religion, on which 

 only the minister, and possibly now 

 and then a deacon, is supposed ever to 

 speak, and only on rare occasions? 



Why are we usually so reluctant to 

 speak among ourselves of the religion 

 to which we are really devoted? Wliy 

 are we usually so reluctant to admit 

 that we are students of nature ? I have 

 noticed that when a scoffer at nature 

 and at the student of nature finds him- 

 self in the attitude of "wanting to 

 know," the student's doorbell begins to 

 ring and his mail increases in volume. 

 I have also observed that when the 

 "funny man's" friend dies unexpected- 

 ly, and the "funny man" is seized by a 

 pain in the region of his own heart, 

 the clergyman's doorbell begins to 

 ring. — E. F. B.] 



"The stormy March is come at last, 

 With Avind, and clouds, and changing 

 skies." 



Do It Through Evolution rather than 

 Revolution. 



BY PROFESSOR THEODORE H. EATOX, DE- 

 PARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCA- 

 TION AT THE CONNECTICUT AGRICUL- 

 TURAL COLLEGE, STORRS, CONNECTICUT. 



You ask our opinion concerning the 

 offering of courses in agriculture and 

 horticulture in the public schools of 

 Connecticut. Without going into de- 

 tail, as I hope to later in a bulletin, I 

 may indicate my conclusions briefly : 



I. It is not the function of the ele- 

 mentary school to give vocational 

 training in agriculture. For pupils 

 living in a village or rural environment 

 the use of horticultural and agricultural 

 projects and materials is of the very 

 first importance as a means to teaching 

 the "common elements" in terms of 

 the pupils' own lives. In the seventh 

 and eighth grades of elementary 

 schools it is probable that agriculture 

 on a meaningful rather than a text- 

 book basis may have a prevocational 

 as well as a liberalizing value. In city 

 schools the prevocational and liberal- 

 izing aims may well justify the teach- 

 ing of it. In the junior high school at 

 South Norwalk you may note a begin- 

 ning. 



2. In the larger city high schools 

 prevocational agriculture may well 

 have a place. (The prevocational aim 

 involves the election of occupation by 

 the pupil rather than the attainment of 

 skill and technology necessary to the 

 pursuit of it.) 



3. In many of the rural high schools 

 it is probable that the whole course of 

 study should be built up around a vo- 

 cational course in agriculture foi- boys 

 and a course in home economics for 

 girls. Such a course may be developed 

 in which the thought content is as great 

 as that in the standardized old line 

 studies, and the experience involved, 

 even in the class room, far less vicarious 

 and remote. 



If such a course is to become the core 

 of the rural high school, as I believe 

 that it should, in most cases, then cer- 

 tain requirements must be fulfilled. 

 Among them are these : 



a. The selection of subject matter 

 in the light of community needs as re- 

 vealed in survival types of agriculture, 

 and variants in the line of progress. 



b. The problem adjustment in teach- 



