202 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [e-j Oct., i9io 



night and morning to teach the school. The county superintend- 

 ent has urged them to make daily preparation for every lesson. 

 If she has thirty recitations per day, the time that she can give 

 to the preparation of any one of them is limited. Even if the 

 teacher has the ability, and the material at hand, she has not the 

 time to work up lessons in agriculture each day, and especially 

 so when in many communities even yet this work is regarded as 

 the frills rather than the essentials of school work. 



I think that every county superintendent will bear testimony 

 to the fact that the more definitely he can point out to his rural 

 teachers and pu])ils what he wants done, the more nearly does he 

 come to getting it done, and the more indefinite the plans and 

 assignment, the poorer are the results secured. 



I think we are securing the best results in orthography in 

 our county this year that we have ever secured. The work in 

 this subject in our state course is outlined with considerable defi- 

 niteness. As perhaps most of you know, there are a number of 

 Latin roots to be learned each month, a number of affixes, some 

 rules of spelling or puiu-tuatioii. in addition to the spelling of 

 words that occur in the lessons of the month. Two of our ex- 

 perienced rural teachers went through the work of the year, 

 analyzed and defined several words that contained the roots and 

 affixes to be studied each month, stated and illustrated the rules 

 of pronunciation, and made a careful selection of from 200 to 

 400 words from the lessons of each month. This work was all 

 arranged and printed and a copy furnished to each teacher and 

 advanced pupil. The material was selected by competent persons 

 who took plenty of time to make the selection, and the assign- 

 ments were worth while. The selection was not left to be made 

 in a haphazard or careless manner by a very busy or indifferent 

 teacher. The teacher and the pupil knew definitely what was 

 expected of them ; they did not have to use much time and energy 

 to find the material, but could spend this time and energy in mas- 

 tering the material before them, and so far better and more tang- 

 ible results were secured. 



I find that the same thing is true in the other branches, and 

 I try to point out to our rural teachers and advanced pupils as 

 definitely as I can what I want done. 



I feel sure that this applies with equal force to the subject 

 of agriculture. I think one reason why more and better work in 

 agriculture has not been done in our schools, is because the mat- 

 ter was just a little hazy in the minds of us all. No one seemed 



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