Nature-Study Agriculture 95 



make the individual an integral part of the 

 activities and progress of his time. At all 

 events, there must be as great possibility for 

 culture in the nature-studies as there is in the 

 customary subjects of the common schools. 

 My plea is that new educational methods must 

 be employed before we can really reach the 

 farming communities. I am not insisting that 

 we make more farmers, but that we relate the 

 rural school to the lives of people and that we 

 cease to unmake farmers. 



Man is a land animal and his connection with 

 the earth, the soil, the plants, animals and at- 

 mosphere is intimate and fundamental. This 

 earth-relationship is best expressed in agricul- 

 ture, not agriculture merely as a livelihood, 

 but as the expression of the essential relationship 

 of man to his planet home. Agriculture affords 

 a primary educational course for the develop- 

 ment of the race. If this kind of instruction is 

 really to come and to be effective, nature-study 

 agriculture is not to be added to the school work 

 so much as to grow out of it as a redirection or 

 reconstruction of it. The best agriculture is 



