davrnhort] N A TU R E- STU D Y A XD A G RICULTUR E IOI 



It is nature-study in which the child may even influence the 

 processes. It is nature-study which distinctly stimulates 

 industry. 



When the pupil is sent to study the tree, the bird or the insect, 

 the most that he can do is to observe and record. This is all 

 good in its way, but the tree, the bird and the insect are self- 

 sufficient unto themselves or, at least, are in no sense dependent 

 upon the boy, nor are they of much consequence to him or his 

 except in an esthetic sense. 



When, however, the boy is set to studying the pig, the matter 

 of utility at once enters in as a factor of the problem. The pig is 

 worth something and the boy can see it. He can see how the 

 bare existence of the pig is dependent upon regular feeding which 

 he, himself, may give; and how the pig. when he is brought to a 

 finish, is capable of contributing not only to the support of the 

 boy's body but can be sold for money with which may be 

 purchased many things dear to the heart of a boy. He 

 sees, in other words, how he. himself, may influence the produc- 

 tion of pigs and if he has even a fair share of that creative activity 

 which most boys possess, it will be stimulated into action by the 

 prospect. * 



If he is set to studying the cow and her milk, especially if he 

 learns how to compare one kind of milk with another, or if his 

 attention is even directed to the conditions under which dif- 

 ferent kinds may be produced, he sees in concrete wax's how 

 nature behaves in her workshop, what it is that nature is doing, 

 day by day. and how it is that these activities are connected with 

 the affairs of men. He cannot help but see how the family that 

 owns good cows has an advantage in the world over those whose 

 cows are poor or ill-fed. 



If he is set to studying corn he knows at once that he is dealing 

 with a crop whose management is in the hands of man, with 

 something that does not exist for itself alone and that would not 

 and could not exist except for man's attention. All this helps to 

 stimulate activity and productive energy on the part of the 

 child, which is one of the things we need to nourish when we take 

 children out of real life for a considerable length of time and put 

 them into that artificial world we call the schoolroom. 



So we might assign the whole gamut of topics agriculturally 

 and show how their study stimulates and satisfies something 



