dy. It is here that the introduction of nature-study
into our rural schools would be especially helpful. This nature-study
when properly followed approves itself both to educators and to farmers.
It is a pedagogical principle recognized by every modern teacher that in
education it is necessary to consider the environment of the child, so
that the school may not be to him "a thing remote and foreign." The
value of nature-study is recognized not only in thus making possible an
intelligent study of the country child's environment, but in teaching a
love of nature, in giving habits of correct observation, and in
preparing for the more fruitful study of science in later years. Our
best farmers are also coming to see that nature-study in the rural
schools is a necessity, because it will tend to give a knowledge of the
laws that govern agriculture, because it will teach the children to love
the country, because it will show the possibilities of living an
intellectual life upon the farm. Nature-study, therefore, will have a
very direct influence in bringing the child into close touch with the
whole life of the farm community.

But it is not so much a matter of introducing new studies--the old
studies can be taught in such a way as to make them seem vital and
human. Take, for instance, geography. It used to be approached from the
standpoint of the solar system. It now begins with the schoolhouse and
the pupils' homes, and works outward from the things that the child sees
and knows to the things that it must imagine. History, writing,
reading, the sciences, and even other subjects can be taught so as to
connect them vitally and definitely with the life of the farm community.
To quote Colonel Parker, who suggests the valuable results of such a
method of teaching:

It would make a strong, binding union of the home and the school,
the farm methods and the school methods. It would bring the farm
into the school and project the school into the farm. It would give
parent and teacher one motive in the carrying out of which both
could heartily join. The parent would appreciate and judge fairly
the work of the school, the teacher would honor, dignify and
elevate the work of the farm.

The study of the landscape of the near-by country, the study of the
streams, the study of the soils, studies that have to do with the
location of homes, of villages, the study of the weather, of the common
plants, of