VI PREFACE BY L. H. BAILEY 



faculties, rather than the receptive; it asks the pupil 

 what he has found out, rather than what he remembers. 

 The school is now reaching out to the larger problems 

 of the environment, and to the affairs of men; for it is to 

 touch life at every point. In this movement the labora- 

 tory is concerned; consequently, the laboratory is de- 

 veloping away from mere object- teaching and mere 

 piece-work, into a vital and genuine touch with phe- 

 nomena as they occur under wholly natural or normal 

 conditions; and there is also a tendency toward the 

 development of simple apparatus, in order that the 

 pupil in even the humblest school may be reached. We 

 now see that object-lesson teaching with natural history 

 objects, and the giving of information about nature, are 

 not nature -study: we must study the objects and phe- 

 nomena in their natural relations. The schools are now 

 ready for this point of view. They are growing plants 

 in windows when they have no laboratories adapted to 

 the purpose; some of them are establishing school -gar- 

 dens; they are appropriating the adjacent fields; and 

 they are even drawing on private gardens and farms. 

 The ideal plant teaching, it seems to me, begins always 

 with function and essential life relations, even with 

 young children. I like the titles of Professor Oster- 

 hout's chapters, the "work" of roots and leaves and 

 flowers; and I am glad that he relates the subject to 

 the affairs of men by including a discussion of plant- 

 breeding. 



COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE L. H. BAILEY. 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y. 



