FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 85 



CARRY IT INTO THE CITY SCHOOLS, 



as well; and while nature study is most admirably taught at present in 

 very many of our city schools I would carry the application of the work 

 ever farther and apply it to the conditions of life in the country, that 

 many children who are living in cities, with no means of obtaining infor- 

 mation concerning life outside of the city, may, through nature study 

 instruction, obtain some knowledge of life that exists outside of the city 

 in which they live. I believe 



THE FUTURE PROMISES GREATER THINGS IN COUNTRY LIVING, 



and in the development of agriculture, than anything we have yet known 

 in our country, but it will come as the result of our educational forces 

 fitting, training and educating the present and future generations along 

 these lines that will enable them to more intelligent and skillful culti- 

 vaters of the soil, when a certain proportion of those now in our public 

 schools shall find themselves following farm life as their chosen occupa- 

 tion. One of the most hopeful indications of the present times is the 

 wonderful interest that is awakening in this subject, not only in New 

 York and in Michigan, bst in many of the states of our Union. The great 

 problems that are before our Nation today are going to be solved in the 

 future, as they have been in the past, by our public schools, which have 

 been the pride and the strength of our Nation. 



DISCUSSION. 

 EX-COMMISSIONER A. G. RANDALL, CALHOUN COUNTY. 



Speaking from the standpoint of the farmer, of the man who is somewhat 

 distant from the city, the question arises whether the people are ready for this 

 kind of teaching-. The children of the cities are ready for it because of its nov- 

 elty. It would not so much impress connti-y children who have associated with 

 some of the objects used in the lessons from their earliest recollection. This may 

 partly account for the fact that the rural schools rather incline to frown down 

 anything like a "fad" of this kind; the value of which is admitted by teachers and 

 thinkers, but not appreciated by many farmei's. 



The country people must therefore be educated in these matters in every possible 

 way. They must be discussed at farmers' meetings and teachers' Institutes. A 

 slight progress can be noted in the matter of nature study, althoug'h at present not 

 five per cent of the pupils in Calhoun county are taking up this topic. How is 

 farther advance to be brought about? By following the scheme laid out by the 

 Superintendent of Public Instruction. The common graded schools have been crit- 

 icized because boys and girls graduate at fourteen years. Twenty per cent of them 

 go on to high schools, but it is certainly to be hoped that this work in agriculture 

 will supplement the work in the common branches of the graded school and thus 

 help cure its defects. 



The grave difficulty in the whole matter is the impossibility of getting teachers 

 properly qualified. These we must have before nature studies or agriculture can 

 be successfully taught in our public schools. 



THE MOTHER AND THE SCHOOL. 



MRS. MARY A. MAYO, BATTLE CREEK. 



The place where a woman should be best known is her home. The 

 place where she should be next best known is the school-room. Over 



