STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 73 



AGEICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE IX THE SCHOOLS. 



Under this general subject a series of exercises were given by 

 Miss M. L. Wilson and a class of her pupils from the East Auburn 

 school. The general obiect was to illustrate the interest pupils take 

 in the objects of nature, especially plant life, and the desirability of 

 introducing the study of the elements of argiculture into the schools 

 of the State. This school exercise is published in the Report of the 

 Board of Agriculture and we take pleasure in referring our readers 

 to it. It proved one of the most popular exercises of the meeting. 



In connection with the general subject the following paper was 

 read by Miss H. M. Merrill of Farmington : 



STUDY OF PLAXT LIFE IN SCHOOLS. 



By Miss H. M. Merrill, First Lady Assistant, Faimiuoton 

 Xornial School. 



In presenting a few points with reference to the study of plant 

 life, I trust to be excused from looking at the subject from the 

 teacher's stand- point, considering britfly what it is possible to 

 accomplish in the remotest cquntry school. A consideration that 

 cannot be ignored is the present tendency to the ovei -crowding of 

 school courses. Surely the period plainly intended for that of men- 

 tal as well as bodily development is long enough for acquiring the 

 essentials that will best fit the boy and girl for bis and her work in 

 the world. What these essentials shall be is the question that con- 

 tinually confronts the educator, and as new conditions shape them- 

 selves, the demands of the present are no longer satisfied with the 

 requirements of the past. 



It is no longer a question under discussion, that elementary 

 science should have a place in the elementary schools. The teach- 

 ing of science has woiked its way from the high school to the 

 primary grades, and has there found its proper beginning. That 

 education is recognized as incomplete that doe* not introduce the 

 child to the world of nature, as well as to the world of books, and 

 it fails of its most practical results if the mind is not quickened to 

 grasp knowledge through the senses and to investigate, to some 

 degree, the great and silent forces that are working around him. 



The child, when he enters school, is a little bundle of animated 

 curiosity, bristling with interrogation points and putting out feelers 



