108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pul). Doc. 



very long since. You know about the picture, — there was 

 a circle and two dots, and a line down the middle, then tAvo 

 lines towards the bottom and two at the side ; that rep- 

 resented a man. The audience laughed when she said that 

 was a good piece of work ; and she said : "It is, because it 

 represents that that child in the second grade had that idea 

 of a man. He has arms and legs. Later on, the child will 

 have an appreciation of clothing or of a hat, or something 

 else." But we teach so much outside the child's realm ! 



Physiology? Perhaps. History? Yes. 



Civil government ? Yes. I wish to comment on the words 

 "civil government." In Europe this last summer I sought 

 to find out what books they used in civil government. I 

 did not find a school in which it was taught, — an elementary 

 school. I went to book store after book store, asking for 

 some simple book that would give me an idea of the funda- 

 mental principles of the government, and they said, " We 

 don't know of smy such book." And I said: "I know of 

 one published in Boston, but I would like one published 

 here. What do your children study in school?" "Why, 

 they don't study those things ; those are taken for granted." 

 Of course every citizen in America is a potential president. 



I wonder if the new points of view in regard to the one- 

 teacher school I am talkinof about are not to come rather 

 more by a change in the method of treating the subjects 

 which are now there, than merely by forcing new subjects in ? 

 I wonder if this arithmetic cannot be expressed very largely 

 in terms of rural problems? I wonder whether this reading, 

 which runs from the first grade to the eighth, cannot be in 

 part reading that has to do with country problems, quite as 

 well as history and literature, — never cutting out history 

 and literature entirely? Then, when it comes to the higher 

 school, of course we can have our special courses of instruc- 

 tion. Many of the schools in the west are putting in agri- 

 cultural courses at the present time. I am not sure that it 

 is all going to stand or be permanent. 



I am going to read you a course of study that is being 

 taught in an academy in New York State, three miles from 

 the New York line ; this is the academy of which I spoke 



