THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED TO ALL PHASES OF NATURE-STUDY IN SCHOOLS 



Vol. 3 DECEMBER, 1907 No. 9 



THE NATURE-STUDY POINT OF VIEW IN TEACHING 

 AGRICULTURE 



By L. H. BAILEY 

 Cornell University 



A fundamental necessity to successful living is to be in sym- 

 pathy with the nature-environment in which one is placed. This 

 sympathy is born of good knowledge of the objects and phenom- 

 ena in the environment. The process of acquiring this know- 

 ledge and of arriving at this sympathy is now popularly called 

 nature-study. 



The nature-study process and point of view should be a part of 

 the work of all schools, because schools train persons to live. Par- 

 ticularly should it be a part of rural schools, because the nature- 

 environment is the controlling condition for all persons who live 

 on the land. There is no effective living in the open country 

 unless the mind is sensitive to the objects and phenomena of the 

 open country; and no thoroughly good farming is possible with- 

 out this same knowledge and outlook. Good farmers are good 

 naturalists. 



For many years it has been one of the purposes of the College of 

 Agriculture in New York to point the way to this nature-sym- 

 pathy ; and inasmuch as this nature-sympathy is fundamental to all 

 good farming, it was conceived that the first duty of any move- 

 ment was to lend the effort to the establishing of an intelligent 

 interest in the whole environment — to knowledge of fields and 

 weather, trees, birds, fish, frogs, soils, domestic animals. It 

 would be incorrect to begin first with the specific agricultural 

 phases of the environment, for the agricultural phase (as any 

 other special phase) needs a foundation and a base : it is only one 

 part of a point of view. Moreover, to begin with a discussion of 



