12 NATURE STUDY BY GRADES 



subject of irrigation this principle plays an important part. 

 The educated farmer, after irrigating, runs a cultivator 

 or other implement down the furrow to cover the mouths of 

 the capillaries which conveyed the water downward ; know- 

 ing that if he does not, these very capillaries will draw the 

 water back out of the ground, to be evaporated by the warm 

 sun and wind, thus robbing the plant roots of much of their 

 needed moisture. By constantly applying principles once 

 learned, the pupil gets into the habit of looking for every 

 possible influence that may be involved in any set of circum- 

 stances or conditions, and so acquires ability to discover, 

 and to give to each element its proportion of influence 

 in the total results, a most essential thing in all affairs 

 of life. 



In the grammar grades continuous observations, properly 

 recorded and subsequently compared, must often precede the 

 discovery of a law or principle. The power and strength de- 

 veloped in this long process is of greater educative value than 

 the simple possession of the fact, which, possibly, the teacher 

 could have imparted in a few moments. Making and re- 

 cording observations and writing descriptions of experiments 

 performed and of deductions made from them, are processes 

 of the greatest value, adding interest to the work and estab- 

 lishing true and scientific habits of work and thought. 



Some of the work, especially that in biology, is so much 

 influenced by the weather conditions and the seasons, that it 

 naturally divides itself into fall work, winter work, and spring 

 work, in order to take advantage of the abundance of illustra- 

 tive materials at hand, and of the prevailing trend of the 

 child's mind outside of school hours. 



For example, spring is much better than fall for the study 

 of germination and inflorescence, while the latter season is 



