CORRELATION IN NATURE-STUDY 



By C. A STEBBINS 

 State Normal School, Chico, Calif. 



Elementary courses of study, as of yore, still seize the baby 

 pupils, bubbling over with life, place them in the schoolroom high 

 chairs, and feed them ever after on books, books. The small boys 

 and girls are carefully weaned from all large active, living things. 



As school children all roads lead to the high chairs, as citizens and 

 teachers all roads lead to books and a high-chair life. 



While window boxes and aquaria may have their places, that of 

 bringing a piece of the creeks and the country to city children, 

 the writer is glad that teachers cannot bring the gardens and the 

 creeks into the schoolroom. 



If we desire to make the boys and girls immune to the attack of 

 schoolroom fungus, which fills them with the mycelium of dislike 

 for the school, which makes books and desks their memory focus, 

 and which finally drives them from the school, we must bring 

 them in contact with large, active, real things and let them see 

 and feel the forces of nature working thereon. 



The following is an account of how the school gardens are the 

 hub upon which a miniature world revolves at the California 

 State Normal School at Chico. The account should be read with 

 a large perspective, keeping in mind that the gardens carry a part 

 of the community life with it and is in addition the working 

 ground upon which nature demonstrates her great principles and 

 points out the action of her correlated forces. 



The central aim of the work is correlation. Its main burden, 

 as a system is to show the relation that one force bears to another; 

 to show how these forces seem to work towards man's comfort, 

 when led by his will, thus making the child more appreciative of 

 these forces and fitting him for better citizenship. 



A school should endeavor to make the real business and social 

 apprenticeship of its charges as short as possible. Chico is a fruit 

 center. We have taken the hint and a considerable portion of t he 

 garden is devoted to horticultural work. Each spring term the 

 sixth grade plant peach pits, "piece" roots, etc. The following 

 year the young seedlings are budded and grafted, each individual 

 caring for four or six trees. The pupils prune and cultivate their 



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