82 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA 



by farmers' sons must provide the necessary 

 instruction. There seems no other practical way. 

 The special instruction offered in this line is not 

 merely to train skilful farmers. It is quite 

 important that farmer boys and girls learn to 

 appreciate and love the country. There need be 

 here no division in material or method. The 

 knowledge of soil and atmosphere, of plant and 

 animal life that makes him an intelligent 

 producer, puts him in sympathetic touch with 

 these activities of nature. If the farmer as he 

 trudges down the corn rows under the June sun 

 sees only clods, and weeds, and corn, he leads an 

 empty and a barren life. But if he knows of the 

 work of the moisture in air and soil, of the use 

 of air to root and leaf, of the mysterious 

 chemistry of the sunbeam, of the vital forces in 

 the growing plant, of the bacteria in the soil 

 liberating its elements of fertility ; if he sees the 

 relation of all these natural forces to his own 

 work ; if he can follow his crop to the market, 

 to foreign lands, to the mill, to the oven and the 

 table ; if he knows of the hundreds of commercial 

 products obtained from his corn or the animals 

 that it fattens : he then realizes that he is no 

 mere toiler ; he is marshaling the hosts of the 

 universe, and upon the skill of his generalship 

 depends the life of nations." 



It will be seen at once that all these new ideals 

 are bound to result in a complete revolution of 

 our current methods of rural school-teaching. 

 The time cannot be very far distant when we 



