who was completing the eighth
grade, to figure out for him how many gallons it contained. She had just
been over "weights and measures" and "denominate numbers" of all kinds.
After much figuring she returned the answer that there were in it about
seven and one half gallons, without ever suspecting the ridiculousness
of the result.

=A Rich Environment.=--The country is so rich in material of all kinds
for scientific observation, that some education should be given to the
rural child in this field. Agriculture and its various activities
surround the child; nature teems with life, both animal and vegetable;
the country furnishes long stretches of meadow and woodland for
observation and study. Yet in most places the children are blind to the
beauties and wonders around them. Nature study in such an environment
should be a fascinating subject, and agriculture is full of
possibilities for the application of the thought in the textbooks.

=Who Will Teach These Things?=--But who will teach these new sciences or
open the eyes of the child to the beauties around him? Not everyone can
do it. It will require a master. Teaching "at" these things in a dull,
perfunctory way will do no good. It would be better to leave them
untaught. We have, everywhere, too much "attempting" to teach and not
enough teaching, too much seeming and not enough being, too much
appearance and not enough reality.

An example will illustrate the author's meaning. Some years ago an
experienced institute conductor in a western state found himself the
sole instructor when the teachers of the county convened. He sought
among the teachers for someone who could and would give him assistance.
One man of middle age, who had taught for many years, volunteered to
take the subject of arithmetic and to give four lessons of forty minutes
each in it during the week. This was good news to the conductor; he
congratulated himself on having found some efficient help. His
assistant, however, after talking on arithmetic for ten minutes of his
first period, reached the limit of his capacity, either of thought or of
expression, and had to stop. He could not say another word on that
subject during the week! Now if this is true of an experienced
middle-aged teacher of a subject so universally taught as arithmetic,
how much more true must it be of an instructor in a subject like
agriculture. It should not be expected that a young girl, eighteen or
twenty years of age, who has pro