72 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8:2— Feb., 1912 



develop in them, with some freedom of choice, and not as some 

 biased individual directs. 



To me the school is leading the children into the "blind 

 alleys" rather than out into the wide avenues. It is trying to 

 lead national and community life rather than to follow it. Sweep 

 the school aside and the world would progress, but with some 

 friction. The school arose to allay friction. It first was the 

 family. The natural environment was the. school room; those 

 things immediately in touch with the child and the family were 

 the materials ; the parents were the teachers, and what would 

 best work out the happiness of the family and the race with the 

 least amount of friction determined the methods. The child was 

 taught to help build a home ; to make and to use tools ; to hunt 

 and to prepare his food ; thus to relieve in as many w^ays as 

 possible the friction in his daily life. 



Conditions soon became more complex, and new vehicles, 

 reading, writing and arithmetic, were called to carry the new 

 complexities. 



We question any legitimate call for much of the geography, 

 history and arithmetic, etc., which has come to be a part of the 

 twentieth century school. We doubt that the community ever 

 needed cube root, the least common multiple, the greatest com- 

 mon factor, etc., etc. If the community life ever called for such 

 stuff, times have changed and these subjects no longer fulfill 

 any important function. The school is demonstrating its ability 

 to lead. 



The universities and agricultural colleges have done and 

 are doing much for the betterment of agricultural conditions. 

 They are coming to recognize the potentiality in the children 

 and are now forming and following plans to better not only our 

 national growth but that of the school through agriculture- 

 agriculture in its broadest sense. In 1910, the University of 

 California set aside a sum of money to take agriculture to the 

 schools. Our plan has been and is to make school life a copy of 

 the community life, to link the school and the community through 

 the agency of the school garden, thus to satisfy the growth of the 

 racial body and mind of the children. Less than five months ago 

 the Division of Agricultural Education of the University of Cali- 

 fornia offered to the Whittier school of Berkeley land, water, 

 tools, and seeds in return for the boys and girls of the fifth and 

 sixth grades. The children came to the campus gardens but one 

 hour a week. They were divided into groups of eight and placed 

 in charge of students in the University. The past term we 



