102 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pul). Doc. 



schools are not beoinnint)^ to teach the cliild the ^va^' in which 

 it grows up, as the child first comes into knowledge of the 

 things with which he lives. Now are we not teaching our 

 geography very largely in the terms of the child's life ? Do 

 we not beo-in with the thino^s that he knows most about, — 

 about the hills and mountains, the brooks and rivers, the 

 trees, — and gradually enlarge the child's mind until the last 

 thing the child considers is the universe as an organization ? 

 I am wondering, after all, whether that is not the natural 

 way? I thought when I left school that government was 

 some far-off chimera, and that the only persons who had any- 

 thing to do with the government were those who wore long, 

 black coats and tall hats. Ever}- child is in the midst of 

 government, is he not, in the home and in the school? How 

 man}^ children know what the governmental apparatus of the 

 school district is, and who the school officers are, and how 

 they elect the school officers, and what their ol^ligations are, 

 and the term of office for the city, the county or the State ? 

 I went to school and studied geologj^ from a text book. 

 I was told we could not study geology in the neighborhood 

 of that school because there was none there ; but once dur- 

 ing: the course of our o-eolofjical studies we were taken some 

 distance off on a train to see some outcropping of rocks, 

 and when I got through, my idea of geology was stratified 

 rocks. But now the teacher who teaches geology tells you 

 that the earth's surface is a o-eolomcal historv, whether sand 

 bank or rock-bottom stream ; it all has o-one through a 

 change, as part of the earth's history. So the study of mere 

 incidental outcroppings of rocks has ceased to-day to mean 

 the stud}^ of geology. I am bringing these things before 

 you merely to show that we are coming gradually to connect 

 the environment with the child. Now we have put the child 

 very largely in sympathy with its general environment, so 

 far as geography is concerned, but we have not yet put the 

 child in sympathy with the industrial forces of the com- 

 munity. We have not put the child in sympathy with the 

 business of dairying, in a dairy centre ; we have not put 

 the child in sympathy with fruit growing, in a fruit-growing 

 centre. 



