122 STATE OF MICHIGAN. 



is agreed on all hands that we should aim to interest the children, as 

 they are the niosf susceptible, and as they will very soon begin to assume 

 the duties whicli now occujiy the time of older persons."' 



OUR EDUCATIONAL METHODS AND FORESTRY PROGRESS. 



CHARI.IOS W. ftAKFIELD, BEFORE MICHIGAN ACADEiMY OP SCIENCE. 



It would lie considered rather poor practice, in heating a kettle of 

 water to apply the fire above rather than below the receptacle. One 

 undertaking a plan of this kind would simply put himself in the position 

 of furnishing laughing stock for the community, and still, there are 

 occasions when this method must be adopted, because of adverse condi- 

 tions. For instance, I have been watching men thaw out waterpipes dur- 

 ing this past winter, by building fires on the surface and gradually work- 

 ing down through the earth by this slow method. Criticism may be 

 made upon my analogy, and still, I think there is a strong element of 

 application to our methods of education. We have been expending our 

 energies in working from the top downward. Ours is a democratic coun- 

 try, and when we can. understand thoroughly that the will of the people is 

 supreme and that the average man is a commandant, our system of 

 education must be looked at somwhat differently from a plan adopted 

 under a monarchy or aristocracy. If we wish to accomplish far-reaching 

 results in any progressive matter that aifects tlie people, we must not 

 begin at the university, but with the common school, and the theory 

 of our edvicniion with the child must be, that in. him we are building for 

 the future, and it is right for us to center our energies in him. He is 

 the most imi)0rtant product of our age or of any age. 



In the ])rosecution of the forestry movement, whicli I cannot help 

 but feel is one of the great movements in our land, we may have never 

 so well eqni])ped a Bureau of Forestry in connection, with the general 

 government; we may have the most satisfactory departments in our uni- 

 versities for the development of forestry, but the movement will be one of 

 hesitancy and very unsatisfactory in its results until we can reach that 

 element in the community which will have the influence and the votes in 

 the ado])tioii of metliods and in the control of activities. The child must 

 be imbued with the idea that the root of a tree is at least of equal impor- 

 tance to a (Jreek root; that the furnishing of raw material for industries 

 is of as great moment as is method in expressing the most delightful 

 sentiments concerning the evolution of the race; that the influence of the 

 removal of our forest cover u])on industries and upon manhood is of 

 as great import as any information that can be given with regard 

 to the revolution of the planels or the composition of the sun. Having 

 this thought in my mind, and the desire that the great movement for 

 reforestation shall take a strong hold upon the mass of the people, I 

 am convinced that our work must be centered in our primary system 

 of education. Let me illustrate whnt I mean: In my own township, 

 when. I was a boy, a stream known as Plaster Creek, traversing in an 

 irregular way our township^ from corner to corner, had a very even 



