NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 89 
cation is a process of expression as well as of impression. Sitting down 
here and letting things come into my mind is not the only side of edu- 
cation; it is a very weak side unless it is accompanied with the process of 
giving, "out of every word of the mouth," as the Bible says. We have 
learned a number of these new things, and the leading educators have 
come to the stand that a child shall be educated through a study of his 
environment. Understand, gentlemen, that that doesn't mean that because 
a boy lives in the country he shall study his surroundings in order to 
become a farmer. They are looking for the best process for developing 
the mind purely from the standpoint of the scientific educator. Over in 
New England and in some of those manufacturing towns it means hand 
work and tool work, but out here in the great agricultural state of Iowa 
it means the study of the economic surroundings, which is agriculture. 
I can't help but see the problems connected with this. We must put 
into the public schools a wise, sensible, rational teaching of agriculture. 
What a sad thing it is to find a school in which the dominant idea is that 
a school is simply a place to study books! I can't believe any man far 
enough advanced to be a member of this Association believes that. No 
school will be a good one whose teacher is controlled by that idea. The 
most wonderful teaching ever done was by the Man back there by the 
shores of Galilee. He taught those wonderful abstract truths by means 
of scientific truths and an observance of the world around Him. 
In this state a child five years old is allowed to go to school. But he 
has learned more in that five years than he will in all the other years of 
his life, if he lives to be 969 years old, like Methusaleh. He learned those 
wonderful things absolutely without books, by the exercise of his six 
senses upon the great world round about him. He began by kicking and 
squalling and complaining — and some people never get over it! The 
next thing his hands and feet both began to work together, and things 
had to roost high. The hammer and the looking-glass and the boy of 
three got into a mix-up entirely too often. His mother is very likely to 
think that the old de'il is in the lad, if she doesn't say so. It is not the 
devil that is in the boy; it is the Lord. I suppose she thinks that "the 
Lord moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform." But if the 
mother will be thoughtful, she will be very sorry to have him keep out of 
all that mischief, because that would mean that in all probability he would 
be ready to go down to one of those institutions that the state furnishes 
over which Mr. Cownie has charge. If he didn't get up and use all his 
six senses he would not be a normal child. But the point I want to make 
is that books form a small part of learning. There are three things a 
man ought to have. He ought to know books; I would not want to be- 
little them. Blessings on the teacher that knows how to use them in 
the education of the child! The second thing he must know is this great 
world of things with which he is going to have to do; and the third thing 
is that he be able to do well something that is worth having done. If the 
school-room is the place to educate, then anything that will educate prop- 
erly for those three things and that can be properly administered without 
loss has a place there. 
