EDITORIAL 275 



and put into the farmers' hands, largely through the efforts of 

 the schools, are saving nearly a million dollars a year to the dairy 

 men of that state. 



By means of the school garden, elementary agriculture, com- 

 mon-place physics and chemistry and practical sanitation, nature 

 study in the schools may help mightily to increase the economic 

 efficiency of the pupils, and it does well to ally itself with these 

 broad economic movements. The average corn production in 

 North Carolina, for instance, was 18.4 bushels per acre last year. 

 In that state, the same year, two hundred and sixty-four boys, 

 guided by careful instruction, averaged on one acre of ground 

 ()T.()i) bushels, and one of them produced 19().5 bushels of dry 

 corn. If the farmers of the state could have done as well as the 

 boys, the corn production of this one state would have been in- 

 creased a hundred million dollars worth. With such examples 

 of the possibilities of production scattered throughout the state, 

 the farmer is not long going to be content with a niggardly 

 eighteen bushels per acre. Such nature study instruction is 

 eminently worth while. 



Heredity is conservative. The old structures, the old reac- 

 tions are usually reproduced with faithfulness. This is true not 

 alone of physical inheritance, but of that social heritage which 

 comes to us from the past. The customs, habits and opinions 

 of our fathers are not easily changed. It is a privilege of the 

 intelligent, alert school-teacher to keep in touch with the worth- 

 while things that are new and to champion them in his com- 

 munity, for the school is the natural organ for the social trans- 

 mission of valuable acquired characters. How the schools have 

 aided in the acquisition of our new attitude toward tuberculosis \ 

 The dull submission to the terrors of the great plague is chang- 

 ing to defiant hopefulness. \'ice and poverty must similarly 

 give way to righteousness and comfort. The nature teacher has 

 large opportunity to mold public opinion in the practical matters 

 and modify inefficient and unproductive habits and customs. 



■'Well. Casey," said Wagley. "I hear the crops are so poor 

 in Ireland that they can't even afford to keep scarecrows there." 



"The truth's not in ye !" replied Casey. 



"Oh, come now. you know very well they haven't anv scare- 

 crow^s there." 



"Haven't we tho? Shure. many's the time I've gathered 

 the eggs o' them." 



— Philadelphia Press. 



