SCHOOLS AND FARMING 



ready for it and the teacher is prepared, it 

 should go into the high-school and possibly 

 in lower grades; but the real nub of the 

 matter lies much deeper than this. The 

 whole process of the school must change. 

 "We must begin with the child's world and 

 not with the teacher's world, and we must 

 use the common objects, phenomena and 

 activities as means of education. When 

 these objects, phenomena and activities are 

 agricultural (as they are in a rural com- 

 munity), then agriculture becomes a means 

 of education, but it is not agriculture in the 

 sense of a specialty leading directly to the 

 occupation of farming. That is to say, 

 in such cases agriculture (which is the sum 

 of the community life) becomes the real 

 backbone and motive of the school. Other 

 subjects grow out of it and are picked up 

 with it as the school life proceeds. 



I would have the child know the people 

 of his community, and how they live ; how 

 the community supports itself ; its relation 

 to the neighboring community; how many 

 schools there are and how many churches, 

 and how they came to be there ; the roads ; 

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