EDUCATIONAL PERIODICALS 73 



This is pre-eminently an age of applied science; it is an intensely practi- 

 cal age; the average individual comes in daily contact with problems of 

 science as never before. It is self-evident that science work in elementary 

 schools should play an important part in the education of our youth who 

 go into life as a vast majority do with no further fitting than that re- 

 ceived in the elementary school or secondary school. It was with this 

 thought in mind that the writer began the following preliminary investi- 

 gation which aims in the first place to present some statistics bearing upon 

 the teaching of science, and especially of biologic science, in the secondary 

 schools, and in the second place to suggest possible modifications in our 

 present courses in biologic science that will make such courses a better 

 preparation for the kind of life into which most of our young people are 

 launching, the active life of the thinking, doing citizen (100). 



This somewhat lengthy quotation with respect to one secondary- 

 school subject is given because it represents very well the 

 general attitude of the recent contributors to this journal. Agri- 

 culture is closely allied to all of the fundamental sciences and any 

 such modifications of science teaching as indicated in the above 

 reference will have an important bearing on agricultural educa- 

 tion in the secondary schools. These contributors are already 

 teaching particular branches of science, and their writings have 

 to do with their own subjects in relation to agriculture rather 

 than with agriculture as a separate subject. 



The general field covered by the Nature-Study Review in- 

 cludes, as is stated in the introduction to the first number, "school 

 gardening and the closely allied elementary agriculture" (101). 

 This magazine is now in its seventh volume and has published 

 numerous articles on agriculture as adapted to the elementary 

 schools. For awhile, from September to December, 1909, a 

 special department of school agriculture was conducted. But it 

 was abandoned, the policy now being to devote certain numbers 

 exclusively to this subject, as in the May number of Vol. VI. 1 



The third group includes about one hundred periodicals in 

 which every section of the country is represented. It is through 

 these that the masses of the teachers are reached. In many states 



'Another periodical perhaps should be included: School Agriculture, "a semi-monthly 

 text for use in country, town, and city schools, homes and clubs," published by The Orange 

 Judd Co., beginning January i, 1911. 



