320 RURAL NEW YORK 



boy, and home economics for the girls, along with 

 such agricultural or industrial instruction as they 

 may elect to take with the boys. In the grades this 

 instruction assumes the simplest forms and is de- 

 signed to put the pupil in sympathetic touch with his 

 environment. Nature-study is a popularized term 

 for tlie introduction of nature subjects to the pupil. 

 The fundamental aim always is or should be to lead 

 out the mind of the pupil, to induce it to react in 

 thought on the things with which it comes in contact, 

 and not only to catalogue and classify these but to 

 see and understand existing relations or establish new 

 relations. This is the business of life and the larger 

 the power of observation and the broader the capacity 

 for arrangement and coordination, the better edu- 

 cated is the person. 



In the country in particular, but in the cities as 

 well, it is increasingly recognized that the first ma- 

 terials of education are tlie natural objects about the 

 pupil with which every person has constant contact, 

 and which provide practically every element of train- 

 ing through their study. New York has perhaps been 

 a leader in carrying the nature-study point of view to 

 the grade school pu])il, especially in the country, and 

 hundreds and even thousands of boys and girls and 

 men and women in the State of New York carry with 

 them through life the zest and enthusiasm and out- 

 look that had its inception in the pioneer work of 

 Uncle John Spencer, of Westfield, and of Cornell 

 University, who by his introduction in the simplest 

 way and with a most sympathetic touch made the 



