96 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8 :3— Mar., 1912 



Apgar's Manual of Trees and our compound microscopes were 

 kept in as good condition as possible for we were not sure what 

 sort of a prodigy we might have to teach our science the next 

 year. 



This illustration is not overdrawn in the slightest degree. 

 One danger of much of the modern science teaching has been 

 extreme specialization, and that specialization has occurred alto- 

 gether too frequently before the student has acquired any ade- 

 quate knowledge of the fundamentals of any field. It is for this 

 reason that I hold that it will not do to leave agriculture to be 

 taught incidentally by the scientists. The high school principals 

 and the superintendents know this and they will not readily 

 accede to a condition that in the light of their experience means 

 failure. 



It is sometimes urged that it makes little difference where 

 facts are taught just so they are taught. And it is also urged 

 that the method with which they are taught makes no difference. 

 This is equivalent to saying that if all the facts of agriculture 

 are taught in the teaching of the various sciences that there will 

 be no need of agriculture having any place on the program. My 

 first objection to this is that the facts will not he taught with 

 reference to agriculture ; they will not be organized in the light of 

 its needs. Whatever organization there is will be of a purely hit 

 or miss sort. My second objection is that many of the im- 

 portant facts of agriculture will not be taught. The other 

 sciences do not provide for instruction in farm machinery, stock 

 judging, corn judging, the selection of seeds, etc. My third 

 objection is that facts taught with a certain purpose in mind are 

 not necessarily readily transferable to another field, even though 

 it be a closely related field. Without conscious organization 

 vital relationships are likely to be missed. Either agriculture is 

 or is not worthy of a place on the program, and if it is, then the 

 facts and methods that constitute its special field are the ones to 

 be emphasized. 



We are not to infer from the preceding remarks that the 

 teacher of agriculture will need to know no science. Indeed, he 

 will, he must be thoroughly grounded in the elementary prin- 

 ciples of science and especially well informed in all those phases 

 that have a special bearing upon his field. The leading teachers 

 in agriculture will be thorough scientists. There is no other 

 possible way for them to advance their field. It is not with this 

 phase of the problem, however, that I am so much concerned as 

 I am with the fact that a science is never developed through the 



