New York State College of Agriculture

“ Some February day the wind will veer suddenly to the south and breathe warm thawing breaths over the white frozen world. Then will the forests appear in robes of vivid blue-purple against the shining hills; and in the mornings the soft blue of the horizon will shade upward into rose-color and still upward into yellow and beryl green; these hues are never seen on the forest or in the sky except when the snow covers the earth to the horizon line. The eye that loves color could ill afford to lose from the world the purples and blues which bring contrast into the winter landscape. ”

“ However, we have learned that the brook is no idler, that its main work is to conduct to the ocean the rain that falls upon the earth's surface, and that in doing this it is wearing down the hills, carrying them away only to build up in other places. The cheerful song of the brook takes on a new meaning as we lie in the shade and watch it hurry by. It is not the song of idleness nor of pleasure, but like the song with which a cheerful and tireless worker seeks to make its task lighter. ”

“ Aside from the real school garden, every school premises should be embellished and improved as a matter of neighborhood and civic pride; for one cannot expect the child to rise above the conditions in which he is placed. All these dangers cannot be overcome by any "system" or "method;" they must be solved one by one, place by place, each teacher for himself. Whenever nature-study comes to be rigidly graded and dressed and ordered, the breath of life will be crushed from it. It is significant that everywhere mere "method" is giving way to individualism. ”

“ Forget for the moment that you despise mosquitoes, and let us study their ways. By making its life history the subject of some of our lessons we may at least learn how the mosquito lives and develops; and later we can turn this knowledge to practical account. Since for many generations these creatures have made the human race the subject of insistent study, it is no more than fair that the tables should be turned!
You are not good nature-students until you have recognized and overcome your prejudices. You read the life history of the rabbit and you think you hate its enemies. ”

“ There it is, rising from its mass of purple brown leaves, leaves that are always beautiful in shape and color and suggest patterns for sculpture like the acanthus or for rich tapestries like the palm-leaf in the Orient. There the brave little flower stands with its face to the sun and its back to the snow-drift and looks out on a gray brown world and nods at it and calls it "good." ”

“ There is no more fascinating adjunct to nature-study than a well-kept aquarium. It is a never-ending source of enjoyment, interest and instruction to students of any age. Children in the kindergarten or at home will watch with delight the lively occupants, which cut all sorts of queer capers for their amusement, and older people may read some of nature's choicest secrets through the glassy sides of the little water world. ”

“ Every boy and girl living on a farm in New York State twenty-five years or more ago, has in memory a picture like this: a stubbly hill-side field beset with russet shocks of corn and constellations of orange pumpkins, whence might be seen wide valleys filled with purple haze, and far hills bedecked with autumn tapestries woven about emerald patches of new wheat. ”

“ The springtime belongs to the birds and me. We own it. We know when the Mayflowers and the buttercups bloom. We know when the first frogs peep. We watch the awakening of the woods. We are wet by the warm April showers. We go where we will, and we are companions. Every tree and brook and blade of grass is ours; and our hearts are full of song.
There are boys who kill the birds, and girls who want to catch them and put them in cages; and there are others who steal their eggs. ”

“ We thank the sun for warmth and light by day. Keep us from evil ways that the sun may never hide his face from us for shame and leave us in darkness. We thank thee, oh, mighty Ha-wen-ni-yu that we still live. We thank thee that thou hast made our corn to grow. Thou art our creator and our good ruler, thou canst do no evil. Everything thou doest is for our happiness."
Thus prayed the Iroquois Indians when the corn had ripened on the hills and valleys of New York State long before it was a state, and even before Columbus had turned his ambitious prows westward in quest of the Indies. ”

“ In teaching nature-study, remember that a great part of its value lies in the enthusiasm and zeal with which you handle it. Try, also, to develop the æsthetic sense of the pupil; but do not teach mere sentiment.
Only the growing and open season is thought to be attractive in the country. The winter is bare and cheerless. The trees are naked. The flowers are under the snow. The birds have flown. The only bright and cheery spot is the winter fireside. But even there the farmer has so much time that he does not know what to do with it. Only those who have little time, appreciate its value. ”

“ Our first thought in this study is that a tree is a living being, in a measure like ourselves, and that it has been confronted with many difficult problems which it must have solved successfully, since it is alive. It has found breathing space and food; it has won room for its roots in the earth and for its branches in the light; and it has matured its seeds and planted them for a new generation. ”

“ As we thread our way into the sodden woods, avoiding the streams and puddles that are little glacial rivers and lakes from fast disappearing snow-drifts still heaped on the north sides of things, we look eagerly for signs of returning life. The eye slowly differentiates from the various shades of brown in the floor of the forest a bit of pale blue or pink purple that at first seems as if it were an optical delusion; but as we look again to make sure, lo! it is the hepatica. ”

“ The study of Greek is no more a proper means of education than the study of Indian corn is. The mind may be developed by means of either one. Classics and calculus are no more divine than machines and potatoes are. We are much in the habit of speaking of certain subjects as leading to "culture;" but this is really factitious, for "culture" is the product only of efficient teaching, whatever the subject-matter may be. So insistent have we been on the employing of "culture studies" that we seem to have mistaken the means of education for the object or result of education. ”

“ In time, the methods of teaching nature-study will crystallize and consolidate around a few central points. The movement itself is well under way. It will persist because it is vital and fundamental. It will add new value and significance to all the accustomed work of the schools; for it is not revolutionary, but evolutionary. It stands for naturalness, resourcefulness, and for quickened interest in the common and essential things of life. We talk much about the ideals of education; but the true philosophy of life is to idealize everything with which we have to do. ”

“ The farm boy will turn his hand to twenty things where the city boy will turn his to one. The farm boy has had to meet problems and to solve them for himself: this is sometimes worth more than his entire school training. Why does the farm boy make his way when he goes to the city?
It is no mere incident to one's life that he be able to think in the thought of his own time. Even though one expect to devote himself wholly to a dead language, in school he should study enough natural science and enough technology to enable him to grasp living problems. ”

“ With this idea well fixed in your mind, you will easily see that when you know the country from which a plant has come, a knowledge of the physical geography of that country will be helpful in knowing how to make the plant happy and prosperous.
We must also make the plant comfortable in the soil. There is great difference in what plants require to make them comfortable. Some, like thistles or mullein or ragweed, will thrive on almost any soil and are no more exacting as to food than a goat or a mule; but other plants are as notional as children reared in the lap of luxury. ”

“ Nowhere should the acquiring of mere information be the end of an educational process, and least of all in nature-study, for the very essence of nature-study is spirit, sympathy, enthusiasm, attitude toward life. These results the youth gains naturally when he associates in a perfectly free and natural way with objects in the wild. Science-teaching has fallen short of its goal in the elementary schools—and even in the colleges and universities—by insisting so much on the subject-matter that the pupil is overlooked. ”

“ However careless we may be of our friends when we are in the midst of the luxurious life of summer, even the most careless among us give pleased attention to the birds that bravely endure with us the rigors of winter. And when this winged companion of winter proves to be the most fascinating little ball of feathers ever created, constantly overflowing with cheerful song, our pleased attention changes to active delight. Thus it is that in all the lands of snowy winters the chickadee is a loved comrade of the country wayfarer ”

“ Observe the lilac bush and the snowballs. How is the snow held on the different kinds of evergreens—as the pines, spruces, arbor-vitæ? See how the fruit-spurs on pears and plums stand out against the sky. (Consult Leaflet No. XXXI, "Four Apple Twigs.") Are there any bright colors of branch and twig to relieve the bareness of the snow? Do you see any warmth of color in the swales where the willows and osiers are? Do you see old plumes of grass and weeds standing above the snow? ”

“ The nature-study movement is the outgrowth of an effort to put the child into contact and sympathy with its own life.
It is strange that such a movement is necessary. It would seem to be natural and almost inevitable that the education of the child should place it in intimate relation with the objects and events with which it lives. It is a fact, however, that our teaching has been largely exotic to the child; that it has begun by taking the child away from its natural environment; that it has concerned itself with the subject-matter rather than with the child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have come to associate education with certain definite subjects, as if no other sets of subjects could be made the means of educating a mind. One by one, new subjects have forced themselves in as being proper means for educating. All the professions, natural science, mechanic arts, politics, and last of all agriculture, have contended for a place in educational systems and have established themselves under protest. Now, any subject, when put into pedagogic form, is capable of being the means of educating a man. ”

“ To create a larger public sentiment in favor of agriculture, to increase the farmer's respect for his own business,—these are the controlling purposes in the general movement that we are carrying forward under the title of nature-study. It is not by teaching agriculture directly that this movement can be started. The common schools in New York will not teach agriculture to any extent for the present, and the movement, if it is to arouse a public sentiment, must reach beyond the actual farmers themselves. The agricultural status is much more than an affair of mere farming. ”

“ Only as the child-mind develops should it be taken on long flights to extrinsic subjects, distant lands, to things far beyond its own realm; and yet, does not our geography teaching still frequently begin with the universe or with the solar system?
In the good time coming, geography will not begin with a book at all, as, in fact, it does not now with many teachers. It may end with one. It will begin with physical features in the very neighborhood in which the child lives—with brooks and lakes and hills and fields. Education should begin always with objects and phenomena. ”

“ In the field, nature's lesson has been disregarded and too often the whole aim seems to be to remove everything from the soil and to make no returns. Consequently the organic matter, or humus, has been used up; the tramping of the horses' feet has closed the natural drainage canals; after the crop is removed, the soil is left naked during the winter and the heavy rains wash and erode the surface, and remove some of the best plant-food. After a few years of such treatment, the farmer wonders why the soil will not produce as liberally as it did formerly. ”

“ A lawn is a plant society. It may contain only grass, or it may contain weeds hidden away in the sward. What weeds remain in the lawn? Only those which can withstand the mowing. What are they? Let a bit of lawn grow as it will for a month, and see what there is in it. A swale, a dry hillside, a forest of beech, a forest of oak, a forest of hemlock or pine, a weedy yard, a tangled fence-row, a brook-side, a deep quiet swamp, a lake shore, a railroad, a river bank, a meadow, a pasture, a dusty roadway,—each has its characteristic plants. ”

“ The first forms of animal life which attract the young naturalist's attention are doubtless the birds. These are most interesting to him because of their beautiful colors, their sweet songs, and the grace with which they fly. But who has watched the fishes in a brook or an aquarium and is not able to grant them a place, in beauty, grace and delicate coloration, equal to the birds? To be sure, fishes cannot sing, yet there are so many other interesting facts in connection with their habits and life-histories that it fully makes up for their lack of voice. ”

“ If not school-gardens, take up other lines of work,—study the school premises, the nearby brook or field, an apple tree, or any other common object or phenomenon. If there is any special agricultural industry in the neighborhood, discuss it and set the pupils at work on it. Any of these common-day subjects will interest the children and brighten up the school work; and the pursuit of them will teach the children the all-important fact that so few of us ever learn,—the fact that the commonest and homeliest things are worthy the best attention of the best men and women. ”

“ There is only one reason why a nature-study course should be graded, and that is so cogent that it outweighs all the reasons on the other side: the training of the grade teacher in nature-study is at present so limited in subject-matter that if the course were ungraded the same work would be given over and over in the successive grades until the pupils became utterly weary of it. To many a pupil in the lower grades to-day, nature-study means the sprouting of beans and peas and nothing more. ”