THE WASHINGTOX MEETIXG 3 



"As a matter of fact the nature study movement does not 

 spread among teachers because as a rule a great majority of them 

 can get no conception as to the content of the subject, as to the 

 methods of administration, or even find a rational course which 

 they can follow. If the society should devote itself to some such 

 lines of work as I have crudely outlined above, the society would 

 grow with great rapidity for teachers, where the subject is pre- 

 sented, are constantly writing to know what the course includes, 

 what materials to select, how to present it. how much time to 

 give to it, etc." 



Discussing School Gardens in relation to Nature Study \'. E. 

 Kilpatrick, President of the School Garden Association of Amer- 

 ica said : "We need to take the child out in the open more, be- 

 lieving that there he can be most properly educated. We began 

 our old education with four months school in winter and eight 

 months of out door life. We have extended our school time un- 

 til it covers ten months and the hours of confinement each day 

 have been increased. This is all wrong. The child ought not 

 be in a school room more than three hours a day. Let him be 

 out of doors learning, as we have, the most and best of all we 

 know. This can be, must be done in the city as well as in the 

 country. The city school building must be located in a field 

 where we can have such possibilities of out door education in 

 the garden." 



Miss Anna B. Comstock (N. Y.) : *Tn regard to our pub- 

 lication I believe we are coming closer and closer to the teacher. 

 In the public schools there are fifty teachers who are not trained 

 in nature-study to one who has had training. We need to help 

 these untrained teachers if we are to extend our work. 



"I believe in the garden as an instrument of nature study. 

 Gardening is not necessarily nature study. Much of the chil- 

 dren's gardening that I have seen has had as little relation with 

 nature-study almost as did their manual training. We must re- 

 alize that in the garden the child is handling live material and 

 we should utilize it as such." 



M. Louise Green (N. Y.) pleaded for the garden as a means 

 of giving the child notions of civic and social rights. 



Louise Klein Miller (Ohio) reported the erection in Cleve- 

 land of a new high school which is equipped for a course in ag- 

 riculture, horticulture and landscape gardening. 



In discussing the relation of nature studv to elementary ag- 

 riculture D. J. Crosby (Washington) said in part: "Nature- 

 study has lacked purpose and definiteness. It has failed to reach 



