112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



The study of birds has a remarkable educational value and 

 should be advocated not for the sake of the birds alone but for 

 the good of the children. It gives to many of them a new out- 

 look, a new interest in life, and develops their observational 

 faculties in a natural way. The first task is to arouse the 

 child's interest. Colored plates will do this. Any teacher or 

 older pupil could readily learn to know most of the more 

 common birds by using a field manual illustrated by colored 

 plates, such as may be procured now at small cost, but the child 

 should be brought into contact with the birds themselves. 



If we are to have bird study at all in our rural schools it 

 must be taught in such a way that both parents and school 

 committees can see that it has some elements of utility. The 

 purposes of bird study in the schools are set forth briefly by 

 Gilbert H. Trafton, an educator of experience in this branch, 

 in the following words : — 



The chief purposes of bird study in the schools may be briefly stated 

 as follows: first, to give the children greater pleasure in living, through 

 an acquaintance with the birds; second, to teach them the economic 

 value of birds; third, to teach them to protect and aid the birds. ^ 



Bird study in the public schools need go no further than this. 

 This has a practical and rational side. It needs no excuse for 

 its introduction. It need not interfere to any extent with the 

 regular curriculum. The interest awakened in birds among 

 pupils of the lower grades undoubtedly would turn a few of 

 them to ornithology or kindred sciences, but these pupils would 

 pursue the study further. They would get their scientific train- 

 ing in the higher institutions of learning or continue the work 

 as an avocation, which would add to the richness and fullness 

 of their maturer years and enable them to pass on some of their 

 interest and knowledge to their children's children. 



It is admitted now generally that a benevolent humane 

 interest in birds is desirable in the young, but little is done by 

 the Commonwealth to stimulate that interest. As noted in my 

 last annual report, a committee of school superintendents acting 

 under a suggestion from the State Board of Education has 

 drawn up and published a plan of a course on physiology, 

 hygiene, nature study, plays and games for rural schools, which 



I " Bird Friends," Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1916, page 279. 



