690 MISCELLANEOUS FARM SUBJECTS 



by holding a number of farmers' institutes at the schools. An asso- 

 ciation of country teachers was formed at a meeting held at the Ma- 

 comb Normal School, to be known as the Country Teachers' Asso- 

 ciation of Illinois, and having as its main purpose to increase the 

 usefulness of the country school by improving its physical and so- 

 cial environment and enriching its course of study in such a man- 

 ner as will bring the child into sympathetic and vital relationship 

 with his environment, by country school extension work through 

 the different educational institutions, offices, and agricultural asso- 

 ciations, by consolidating weak country schools, by encouraging 

 more thorough preparation, larger salaries, and longer tenure of 

 positions for teachers, and by the further development in state nor- 

 mal schools of facilities for training country school teachers. A 

 similar association of agricultural school teachers has been formed 

 in Wisconsin, and another in Nebraska. (A. R. Ex. S. 1909.) 



Elementary Education. The agricultural work which is now 

 being attempted in the public schools in different parts of the coun- 

 try includes not only instruction by means of textbooks, of which 

 there are now a considerable number, but also several different 

 phases of practice work or special instruction, among which are 

 the following: 



(1) Nature study with plants, farm crops, domestic animals, 

 and soils. 



(2) School-garden work, including the growing of flowers, 

 vines, and shrubbery for the improvement of school and home 

 grounds and of vegetables in gardens at the schools or at home. 



(3) Lecture courses and institutes for rural school children. 



(4) The organization of clubs among rural school children to 

 encourage the boys to undertake simple experiments with fertilizers 

 and field crops, and the girls to engage in some kind of domestic- 

 science work. 



(5) Boys' rural encampments, in which regular camp duties 

 are interspersed with athletics and other amusements, lectures, in- 

 struction in agriculture, and practice in judging farm crops and 

 live stock. (Ex. S. Circ. 106.) 



The fundamental difficulty with agricultural conditions is that 

 there is no attempt to instruct the children in matters which will 

 awaken an interest in country life. Therefore the place in which 

 to begin to correct the agricultural status is with the children and 

 the rural schools. Hence the greatest good which can be rendered 

 to the agricultural communities is to awaken an interest in nature- 

 study on the part of teachers and children. (Cornell Univ. Bui. 

 137.) 



Teachers of nature-study, when located in city schools, have 

 brought to the consideration of their classes the trees, shrubs, flow- 

 ers, and vines found around the city homes, in the parks, and in 

 the lawns, and have studied the insects, birds, and other animal 

 life of the city in relation to this plant life. In the country they 

 have considered the plants, animals, birds, and insects _ which sur 

 round the farmer and aid or hinder him in his work, giving much 



