290 
A herbarium is not necessary. Use liberal quantities of fresh 
material. Pressed plants are not suitable for elementary work. 
Demand scientific accuracy and precision in all work. Cultivate 
the investigative spirit. Teach, whenever possible, out of doors. 
Vaughan MacCaughey, 
The College of Hawaii. 
FARMERS' INSTITU7ES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 
(Extracts from Circular Q9, ofhce of Experiment Stations, U. S. 
Department of Agricuhure. ) 
Out of every 500 young people in the country districts in the 
United States only one ever enters an agricultural college. Of 
every 100 rural and urban children only five ever reach the high 
schools, and only six ever go beyond the elementary schools. 
Ninety-four out of every 100 children therefore finish their educa- 
tion with the district school. 
In order to reach the 499 out of every 500 rural boys and girls 
who can not go to an agricultural college, and yet in whom some 
attachment for and interest in rural life should be inculcated, 
there has developed quite generally a demand for the introduction 
into the rural schools of subjects that will educate in the direc- 
tion of appreciation of rural life and its opportunities instead of 
confining the teaching as hitherto to studies that ignore the coun- 
try and direct the scholar's attention to the occupations of the 
towns and cities. 
The first effort to nieet this demand was made by the town and 
city schools through the introduction of topics which later were 
all embraced under the term "nature study." The rural school 
began its work of agricultural instruction by directing the 
scholars' attention to some of the simplest and most common nat- 
ural objects in the neighborhood of the school itself. Gradually 
this was extended to critical observation of various phenomena 
in the growth and development of plants and animals. Later, 
elementary text-books on these and other subjects connected with 
rural life were introduced and studied. 
Among the country schools, however, only the most favorably 
situated have been able to conduct even elementary work along 
this line. There are several reasons for this. The subject is new 
in school work v/ith children, and the majority of public school 
teachers are not prepared to give instruction in agriculture be- 
cause until recently there was no demand for such instruction 
and consequently no provision had been made either for qualifying 
a teaching force for imparting it or for equipping the schools with 
suitable apparatus. 
As a part of the course in education for children of public school 
age, a system of ''clubs" has been organized in many sections by 
rural teachers and county superintendents of schools, intended to 
interest the pupils in country life and at the same time be of ser- 
