51 
crowded condition of the elementary school curriculum, in the last paragraph 
of this article be Bays : 
"In conclusion, although some large topics should be omitted, reform In the 
main is not to i>c effected by lopping off here and there, but by changing the 
present aggregation <>i* ideas In each study to an organized body of thought it 
is not the task of grade teachers qot Of scientists, hut of the most advanced and 
nblesl students of education, who are as well posted in subject-matter as in the 
principles of education itself. Even these have more than a life problem in 
Mich a task." 
It is along lines such as these that the curriculum of the rural schools may be 
so far Improved that there will he ample space for the teaching of agriculture in 
an effective way. Just as the courses in the city schools have been improved 
and enriched by the introduction of manual training, so the teaching of agricul- 
ture in the rural schools, when once parents and teachers are convinced of its 
importance and heneiits. will be found to be both practicable and advantageous, 
in a rural school having a curriculum extending over aboul eight years the 
courses in nature study might follow in a general way the brief outlines given 
below. In these outlines it is assumed that the nature-study courses will extend 
over about six years, and he followed by a course in agriculture extending over 
two years. 
NATURE STUDY. 
During the first two or three years in school the children should spend a 
short time each week in forming an acquaintance with the birds, insects, flowers, 
trees, and other animal and plant life of the school yard, the roadside, and the 
wayside pastures and wood lots. This very pleasant and profitable way of 
gaining knowledge has heen their principal occupation during the two or three 
years that they have heen running about out of doors at home, and they should 
be encouraged and aided to extend their knowledge of the things in nature with 
which they are likely to come in daily contact throughout their lives. The 
teacher should go with the children on short walks around the school yard and 
along the roads during occasional noon intermissions, or on longer trips in the 
holds and woods on Saturdays. It would he well if only a few children were 
taken at a time; ten or fifteen are all that one teacher can manage on such 
occasions. Each trip should he taken with some leading ohject in view, such, 
for example, as a search for cocoons, or for grasshoppers, or for weed seeds; 
but this leading ohject should not shut the eyes of the children to other things. 
Let them see and hear and feel and smell ; let them grow in strength as well 
as in knowledge. Tell them very little; they should do the telling. Better wait 
days and weeks for an answer from the children than tell them now and rob 
them of the pleasure of discovery, provided the subject is within their com- 
prehension. 
Nature study at rirst should consist mainly of observations. The perceptive 
faculties should he stimulated and developed. For this reason the exercises 
should never he continued so long as to become wearisome to the children. At 
first there will seem to he hut little connection between the different observa- 
tions made by the children, hut the teacher should never lose sight of the fact 
that very real and definite relationships exist between the different plants and 
animals of a given locality and between these things and their inorganic 
environment. Gradually, therefore, these relationships should be brought out. 
The children should describe and draw the objects seen. This will lead to com- 
parison and judgment. Suppose, for example, that the children examine two 
trees of the same species, one growing in open ground with an abundance of 
plant food and plenty of room for development : the other growing in a dense 
forest with little room for either root or branch; one with short, stocky trunk 
and dense, symmetrical top; the other with tall, slender trunk and small, 
irregular top. By comparing certain well-known features of bark and leaves 
the children will readily recognize the two trees as belonging to the same 
species, but it will require considerable exercise of the reasoning faculties and 
pretty good judgment for them to get at the causes which have brought about 
the marked differences between them. Such opportunities to reason and judge 
are frequently offered in nature study, and the teacher should improve every 
( pportunity to place them before her pupils. 
After the first year or two. the time depending on the ] iro^ress the children 
have made, more attention should be given to studying life histories of plants 
