SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 67 



in the past. We have been having our boys and girls write about 

 pea-nuts, pumpkins, and things they know about. If there is any- 

 thing detestable in our school system, it is to write about "success 

 in life," "character building" and other such subjects. Here a 

 while back a large crowd of people gathered to listen to the boys 

 and girls on the subject of plants, and as these boys and girls came 

 to the platform and gave those compositions before the audience, 

 and after the judges decided the contest. Joe Trigg who was sit- 

 ting back there, he got up and said, that he had been a teacher at 

 one time, and for a considerable time, and whenever the time 

 came that a girl nine or ten years of age, can come upon the plat- 

 form, and grow eloquent in telling about a cabbage, that then 

 there was something added to our school system; the study of a 

 plant and writing about it. There is a natural order in the develop- 

 ment of a plant, which, if a child writes about it, teaches and in- 

 structs it. To write about life and character, they don't know 

 where to begin. But you ask it to write about a pumpkin and 

 when the task is done, the mind will have developed some. 



One reason why agriculture ought to be connected with school 

 life, it doesn't require a text-book; there is not required a large 

 list of difficult and technical names-. Another reason is, it fur- 

 nishes its own laboratory. When a boy sees a bird flying through 

 the air, and he gets his rubber gun and shoots it, and when that 

 bird strikes the ground with a flop, that is what suits him ; he does 

 not want to hurt it. When he puts a can on a dog's tail, he doesn't 

 do it because he wants to injure the dog; it is because he wants 

 to be doing something. The father comes around and says.. 

 ''John quit pulling that cat's tail." The boy will say, "I am not 

 pulling; I am simply holding on." When all that performance 

 is going on, it isn't because he owes any man any ill will. He sets 

 a pin for his best boy friend at school ; yet he has no ill will for 

 him, but because he wants to do something ; he wants to see the 

 boy jump. Teachers make a great mistake thinking the boy has 

 an ill will. If you can furnish that boy a laboratory, instead of 

 his pulling the cat's tail he will apply his energy in that direction 

 and something valuable is added to our school system. 



I would like to talk to you people a long while, but they call 

 me a crank all over this country. We have got the boys and girls 



