e drawing should be emphasized only so far
as it will help them express better what they see, and not to the point
where they attempt to copy the teacher's strokes. The teacher should be
satisfied if every child is doing his best and making steady progress,
even though that best may be crude and not up to the standard reached by
the teacher who struggles for fine results.

[Illustration: FIG. 43.--An apple orchard. First grade. Columbia,
Missouri.]

_English._--For children who are able to write the diary offers a natural
means of gaining experience in the use of common forms of punctuation; as,
for example, the writing of dates and the use of a comma in a series, as
well as the punctuation of simple statements, in such entries as the
following:

April 15, 1912.

We planted the seeds on our farm to-day.

We planted corn, wheat, oats, and beans.

In all work of this sort it is difficult to overestimate the advantage of
separate sheets of paper over a notebook with sewed leaves, in the hands
of the children. With the fresh sheet always comes an inspiration, no
matter what failures have gone before. Poor pages can be done over when
necessary, but do not haunt the workers with their discouraging
suggestions, as in the use of a notebook. The leaves may be gathered
together into a binding of some sort. Even covers of plain brown wrapping
paper can be made artistic with a simple border line well placed or a
design cut from a paper of a different tone. Written work which culminates
in an attractive booklet, however simple, seems more worth while than
exercises written into a commonplace notebook or on scratch paper which
goes to the wastebasket soon after the mistakes have been commented on.

_Number._--The farm problem also supplies abundant opportunity for gaining
experience with number. In addition to the actual measurement of the
materials used for fences and buildings, the scope may be widened, where
conditions warrant, to include estimates and calculations of the amount of
the material used.

For example, how many inches or feet of wire will be needed to make a
three-wire fence of given length? How large a piece of cardboard will be
needed to cut boards one fourth or one half inch wide for a four-board
fence fifteen inches long?

These estimates may be translated, _as far as the children are able to
appreciate the connection_, into quantities and values of the same
material in real problems