EDUCATIONAL PERIODICALS 69 



This was the year after the act establishing the first agricultural 

 college (Michigan) was passed and the year before it was 

 formally opened. He deplored the lack of agricultural instruc- 

 tion in this country and suggested that such instruction might 

 be supplied by having a demonstration farm, an experiment farm, 

 and means of instruction in all sciences connected with culture 

 of the soil. He says : 



What a center of light would such a school as here described be to 

 the whole agricultural community. All purported discoveries in agriculture 

 would come to be tested, and important truths developed by experiment 



would go forth from it into the world Through its pupils it would 



disseminate widely the varied practical information which its courses would 

 furnish, and beyond this, it might be made a means of eliciting the experi- 

 mental labor of hundreds of intelligent farmers throughout the country, 

 for the decision of the important agricultural questions which are still un- 

 settled (88). 



In a footnote at the end of the article the editor calls atten- 

 tion to an account in his National Education in Europe of the 

 system of agricultural education established in France as it was 

 in 1854, and also to the Institute of Agriculture and Forestry in 

 Wurtemburg, and the system of agricultural education in Ireland. 



Pestalozzi and his work, particularly his influence on our own 

 school practices, receive much consideration in the journal under 

 discussion. For example, we find the historical beginning of 

 nature-study in this country in the object-teaching at Oswego. 

 This attempt to put his doctrine into practice is described in 

 great detail (Sga). In another place Pestalozzi is quoted as say- 

 ing with reference to objective teaching that "agricultural labor 

 offers a wider field than any other employment for this means." 

 This statement should be contrasted with the absurd efforts made 

 in some schools to apply these principles. It would be interest- 

 ing in this connection to trace the influence of these early object- 

 lessons on nature-study teaching and to discover to what extent 

 it is responsible for the struggle which nature-study has had to 

 find a legitimate place in our schools. 



The agricultural school of De Fellenburg and Wehrli was a 



