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The kernel of modern educational development is to relate the school-training to the daily life. Much of our education is not connected with the conditions in which the pupils live and is extraneous to the lives that they must lead. The free common schools are more recent in development than universities, colleges and academies and they are even yet essentially academic and in many ways undemocratic. They teach largely out of books and of subjects that have little vital relation with things that are real to the child. The school work is likely to be exotic to the pupil. The child lives in one world, and goes to school in another world.

Every subject has teaching-power when put into pedagogic form. The nearer this subject is to the child, the greater is its teaching power, other conditions being comparable; and the more completely does it put him into touch with his environment and make him efficient and happy therein. In time, all subjects in which men engage will be put in form for teaching and be made the means of training the mind. The old subjects will not be banished, but rather extended; but the range of subjects will be immensely increased because we must reach all people in terms of their daily experience. How all these subjects are to be handled as school agencies, we cannot yet foresee, nor is it my purpose now to discuss the question; but it is certain that the common things must be taught. And the common subjects are as capable of being made the means of developing the imagination and the higher ideals as are many of the traditional subjects.

Fig. 1. Junior Gardeners beginning the work of cleaning up a New York school ground.

Great numbers of our people are in industrial and agricultural environments. By means of the industrial and agricultural trades they must live. These trades must be made more efficient; and the youth must be educated to see in them more than a mere livelihood. These industrial and agricultural subjects must be put more and more into schools. My own interest lies at present more with the agricultural subjects, and these are the occasion for this appeal. The so-called "industrial" and commercial subjects have already been put into schools with good effect: the agricultural subjects now must come within the school horizon.

Probably one million and more of the people of New York State live on farms. This is approximately one in seven of our entire population. Moreover, every person is interested in the out-of-doors and in the things that grow therein. The future agricultural efficiency of New York State will depend on the school training more than on any other single factor; and on the agricultural efficiency of the State will depend, to an important extent, its economic supremacy. New York is the fourth State in total agricultural wealth, being exceeded only by Illinois, Iowa and Ohio. All the country children should be reached in terms of the country. Most of our school books are made for the city and town rather than for the country. The problem of the development of the rural school is the most important single educational problem now before us; and it is essentially an agricultural problem.

Fig. 2. Junior Gardeners at work in a New York school ground. The grounds are now ready for planting. The mail carrier now calls and the pupils take the mail home.

My appeal, therefore, is to every teacher in New York State, whether in country or city—for the city teacher makes public opinion, helps to set educational standards, and many of the country children go to school in the cities. I do not wish to press agriculture into the schools as a mere professional subject, but I would teach—along with the customary school work—the objects and phenomena and affairs of the country as well as of the city. The schools lead away from the country rather than towards it. All this I do not regard as a fault of the schools, but merely as a limitation due to the fact that the schools are still in process of evolution. It requires time to adapt a means to an end, and the schools are not to be criticised. But we must do our best to hasten the evolution. Schools, colleges and universities have only begun to reach the people effectively: these institutions must eventually touch every vital and homely problem, for they are to be the controlling factors in our civilization. Any subject that is worthy a person's attention out of school is also worthy his attention in school.

Fig. 3. Sugar beets and a fourteen-year-old experimenter. (Supt. Kern, Illinois.)

I heard a good story the other day of an occurrence of many years ago illustrating the fact that school training may be wholly exotic to the pupil. The story was told in Ogdensburg, and Heuvelton is near by. The class in geography was on exhibition, for there were visitors. The questions were answered quickly: "How far is it from Rome to Corinth?" "From Rome to Constantinople?" "From Paris to Rome?" A visitor was asked whether he had any questions to propound. He had one: "How far is it from Heuvelton to Ogdensburg?" No one answered; yet the visitor said that none of the pupils would be likely to go from Rome to Constantinople, but that every one of them would go from Heuvelton to Ogdensburg.

Not only must the school teach in terms of its own environment, but more and more it must become the intellectual and social center of the neighborhood or district. Every modern rural school building should be attractive enough to induce clubs of many kinds to hold meetings in it. In the old "lyceum" days the school house was an important gathering place. These days are mostly past, but better days should be coming: the school should connect at every point with the life of the community. Any event, however small, that centers the attention of the people at the school house is a beginning and is worth while. A year ago the children and teacher in one of our district schools began the work of "cleaning up" the premises. The picture (Fig. 1) shows them at work. Later, when the grounds were renovated and ready for the planting, boxes were placed for the reception of the mail for those who do not live on the carrier's route: this is the beginning of a centering of attention at the school house. I think that the boxes might have been more attractive and perhaps better placed, but this will come in time: a beginning has been made. When once the people of any community come to think of the school house as a meeting-place for old folks as well as for children, what may we not expect of the rural school? We need adult education as well as juvenile education.

I have now no course of study to propose for agricultural or country-life subjects in the schools, but I would like to know how many teachers in the State desire to take up certain work of this nature as an experiment. The College of Agriculture will be glad to suggest the kind of work, if need be. The western states are undertaking this work: we must not be behind. It is endorsed by Superintendent Skinner, as will be seen from the letter published at the close of this pamphlet.

To be effective and meaningful, this work should deal directly with the things,—handling the things, studying the things, learning from the things. This is nature-study. To commit to memory something about things is of little consequence. We are too closely committed to books. We are often slaves to books. Books are only secondary or incidental means of educating, particularly in nature-study subjects. We have known the book-way of educating for so long a time that many of us have come to accept it as a matter of course and as the only way. A New York school man recently told me an incident that illustrates this fact singularly well. In the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation he opened a school in which at first he employed only manual-training and nature-study work. Soon one of the children left school. The teacher sought the mother and asked why. The mother replied that there was no use in sending the child to school because the teacher had given it no books to study. So slavishly have we followed the book-route that even the Indian accepts it as the only road to schooling!

Fig. 4. Prize corn and a ten-year-old experimenter in one of Supt. Kern's districts, Illinois.