Elementary Agriculture 



A. W. Nolan 



Nature-study, school gardening and elementary agriculture are 

 all related to one another, and our rural and village schools are 

 beginning to realize that they have excellent opportunities for 

 effective instruction in these subjects. To open the minds of the 

 children to the world of nature about them, to make them thought- 

 ful and observant, and to give them practical knowledge relating to 

 the soil, the plant life, and the animal life of their surroundings, are 

 the fundamental objects in such instruction. Where nature-study 

 ends and agriculture begins, who can say? Perhaps most of us will 

 think of agriculture as emphasizing the economic side of nature, 

 and for present purposes we may let that vague differentiation 

 stand. In order to be concrete and to establish principles upon 

 which to base our discussion of elementary agriculture, we may 

 state rather arbitrarily the following: 



1. Beyond the fifth grade, a study of nature material in any 

 way related to agriculture should receive the emphasis upon the 

 vocational side. 



2. Agriculture as such should not be taught below the seventh 

 grade. 



3. Only well-known "stock" information should be taught, 

 principles which deal with practical needs here and now. 



4. Instruction in school agriculture should follow the seasonal 

 sequence. 



5. The practical work in connection with elementary agricul- 

 ture, should be more in the nature of home projects than of labora- 

 tory exercises and school plots, as our schools are now organized. 



6. Elementary agriculture should be a part of the curriculum of 

 every rural school, the excuse of "no time or place", will not hold 

 good in these days of modem demands. 



It will probably be more interesting and profitable to readers of 

 the Nature-Study Review to learn of actual work given in 

 elementary agriculture than to follow the discussions of what 

 should be done. The writer will therefore in a series of articles 

 describe and criticize a course given in elementary agriculture in a 

 consolidated rural school in Illinois. 



The principal of the school states in his catalogue that the course 

 is a general one, covering the whole field of agriculture, and given in 



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