THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED PRIMARILY TO ALL SCIENTIFIC STUDIES OF NATURE IX 

 ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



Published monthly, except June. July and August. Subscription price, including mem- 

 bership in the American Nature Study Society. $1.00 per year (rune issues). Canadian post- 

 age 10 cents extra; foreign postage, 20 cents extra. 



Tixvnrvrtnnt Please note date of expiration of your subscription on the label of the 

 impurioXll wrapper. Subscriptions must be paid in advance to comply with postal 

 requirements. Subscriptions and advertisements should be sent to The Comstock Publishing 

 Co., Ithaca, X. V. Manuscripts for Publications and Books to be Reviewed should be sent 

 to the Editor. 



Editorial 



The Rural School 



There is much discussion these days about the inefficiency of 

 the Rural Schools as compared with the graded schools of the 

 village and city ; much talk of the low wages given to the rural 

 teacher and of the hopelessness of expecting efficiency under the 

 circumstances. In many states special ways for improving 

 these schools have been devised by the State Departments of 

 Education such as the District Superintendent system in New 

 York. 



We have never quite agreed with the general verdict against 

 the Rural School for the very good reason that having received 

 our early education in this venerable institution we have nsver 

 underestimated its value. 



There have always been in the Rural School certain conditions 

 ideal for the best education, — the two most important being 

 opportunity for initiative on the part of both teacher and pupil. 

 What mattered it to us if we had four teachers with no special 

 powers of initiative when the fifth one had so much that we sped 

 along the path of learning for four terms through the impetus 

 which she had imparted to our own powers of initiative ! We 

 never talk to the pupils in the graded schools about their studies 

 without thinking of the blissfully free way we graded ourselves 

 in those old days. We "went into" our fifth reader, the highest 

 in school, when we were eight years old; and we did "go into it" 

 with a will, for reading then was as it has ever been since a joy 

 and a resource ; and at the age of nine we were struggling.zealously 



351 



