The order in which the sciences shall be taught in the high school deserves a passing mention. If the experimental sciences, viz., chemistry and physics, alone are taught, the chemistry should come before the physics. Since the plant must ever precede the animal and gather for the latter the energy and form for it the food—the living protoplasm— necessary for its existence, it follows that botany should precede zoology among the biological sciences. Based on their relation, one to another, the natural order which the true scientist will give to the different subjects is as follows: chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, physiology.

Especially should chemistry precede the biological sciences, for a knowledge of its principles is absolutely necessary to the proper understanding, not only of them, but of geology, mineralogy, and kindred subjects. Personally, I owe more of my general knowledge and understanding of science to a good working knowledge of chemistry and its laws than to anything else. The atoms with which chemistry deals are to the universe what the letters of the alphabet are to the English language. Can we understand the latter and not know our letters and their various sounds? Can a man have a broad knowledge of any branch of science and know nothing of the elements which form the objects of which the science treats ?

The teacher of physiology may tell of the changes occurring in the food during digestion and respiration. He may speak of the hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice; of the carbon dioxide and oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere; of calcium phosphate in the bones, and phosphorus in the brain. He may talk for hours of the proteins and carbohydrates and hydrocarbons of the foods; but unless he and the pupils understand the elements of chemistry, unless they have seen and examined the substances mentioned, he might as well talk to them of Greek verbs and Sanscrit nouns. He may, with scissors, forceps, and scalpel in hand, show the students systems and organs, tissues, and, by the aid of the microscope, even cells; but, unless he is a chemist, there he must stop. He cannot go farther and, with crucibles, reagents, and scales, show them that the complex animal before them has been built up of three invisible gases and a substance like charcoal.

He may hold in his hand two objects, similar in size, color, organs, everything; twins from the same mother in all outward respects. One pulsates and throbs with that which we call "life." It possesses heat, bodily motion, animal power. The other is cold, motionless, pulseless, throbless, a thing of clay. What is that "life" which the one possesses and the other lacks? Ah, there's the rub! With the wisest of men we can only answer, "Quien sabe?"

If ever answered, it will be by the science of chemistry, which asserts that what we call "life," be it in plant or be it in animal, is but the manifestation of the workings of that king of natural forces, chemism; that

when the elements in the living laboratories, the cells of the organism, cease for an instant to combine, the nascent power which they possessed at the beginning of that instant is gone forever-affinity ends- what we call "death" ensues, and the elements go back once more to Mother Earth to be used again by some succeeding organism. If, then, this science not only has to do with every other, but is the basis of our very existence, should not each high-school pupil be taught its principles in their proper order?

It is my opinion, based upon extended personal experience, that at least one-fourth of the high-school course should be devoted to science study, and this amount of preparation should be required for entrance into college. Suppose that the time of the high-school course be four years, and that not more than one graduate out of twelve enters college at its close, will one year devoted to chemistry, one to physics, one-half to botany, one to zoölogy, and one-half to physiology, in the order named, be too much science for these pupils in proportion to their other work, when we take into consideration what the study of science has done for civilization in the century just passed? For did not man advance more within that century than he had done in all the eighteen hundred years preceding? And what was the chief cause of that advancement? Not the study of Greek and Latin, not the solving of problems in algebra. and geometry, but a closer study of nature-the discovery of those grand, immutable laws of "the indestructibility of matter" and "the conservation and correlation of energy," and the practical use made by man of these discoveries in harnessing nature's forces and causing them to do his work.

And now, in closing, let me say that but few, if any, men have ever known, or ever will know, nature in the true sense; for to do so is to know the relation existing between matter and force, between atom and molecule, between element and compound, between cell and tissue, between organ and system, between plant and animal, between each one of nature's objects and all the rest. It is to view the sciences of chemistry, physics, geology, botany, zoölogy, physiology, all as one grand sciencethe "science of nature." It is to grasp, as it were, the universe in one grand view to stand on an eminence a thousand times higher than any on earth and see all objects in one grand vista before you; and at the same time feel and understand the workings of the great natural forces about you. Then, and then only, can one see and know his relation to all-feel that he is a part of the universal whole-a parcel of the universe-bound to it and kin to all which it comprises.

AGRICULTURE AS A SCIENCE FOR THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

JOSEPH CARTER, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CHAMPAIGN, ILL. That there should be a course of science teaching in the elementary schools was borne in upon the minds of educators in this country as soon as the discoveries and methods of Charles Darwin were generally understood; and the idea began to take form when the pupils of Louis Agassiz went back to their schools from Penikese Island. Teachers generally were convinced of the pedagogical superiority of inductive methods of teaching, and of the high educational value of the content of the naturalscience studies. They saw that these sciences should have a place in the elementary schools, both because of their disciplinary value and because. of their training in habits of observation.

NATURE STUDY

This science-teaching sentiment took tangible form some thirty years ago in the passage of laws which led to the introduction of science teaching in the schools of some of the states. Text-books were prepared. Some of them were taught—literally. It happened, in too many cases, that only the book was taught, and not the science. Educators soon saw that memoriter teaching of the facts of a science was neither scientific nor pedagogic; and the over-use of text-books was discouraged, and teachers were advised to go directly to nature for their lessons. Thus nature study came. In some schools and with some teachers it has cultivated the powers of observation of the children and has added to their knowledge of the processes of nature; but in very many cases it is not at all a study of nature. Sometimes it is a mere fad. Books beyond count

ing have been written; oftentimes by authors who have only read other books-picture-books with the cusps of the new moon turned the wrong way, nature-study songs for children to act out:

"When the corn begins to sprout,

Then two wee leaves come peeping out."

Even the purely literary readers now attempt to give lessons in nature study and to point a moral, too. One book, which came to my attention since this paper was begun, points a moral by making the larch an evergreen. The latest volume, indorsed by high educational authority-A Nature Study Reader - begins with Marco Polo and goes on to the aurora borealis. Thus nature study has come to have a standing similar to that of object-lessons twenty-five years ago, of which Compayré has said: "The object-lesson has had the same fate as the so-called intuitive method. Like all novelties, 'object-lessons' has become a beautifully vague term, which each one interprets in his own way. A long observation of school affairs has convinced me that if one does not wish to be

understood he has no surer means than to speak of object-lessons." Nature study ought not to be permitted to be side-tracked, and finally to be abandoned, as it very likely will be, in the scrap-pile of worn-out fads. Nor should it be allowed to vanish in a pleasant phase of ephemeral literature. The story of Grumpy and Little Johnny Bear is interesting and valuable, and good literature; so are the stories of Lobo, Rag, and Vixen. But nature stories about animals is not nature study; nor are talks about odd and curious things, tho ever so interesting.

Our so-called nature study too often begins with anything or at any place, and leads everywhere and ends nowhere; and, tho interesting and delightful, is often without an element of original investigation, which is the very soul of true nature study. This pseudo nature study ought no longer to run riot among the vagaries of its devotees.

nature.

TRUE NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE CORRELATE

Nature study is so very valuable, and its results of such high educational and economic worth, that it should be preserved. How can this be done? Cannot its threads of interest be gathered in one common fabric-co-ordinated about one common subject? Does not the subject of agriculture afford a field into which most of these lines naturally concenter? Agriculture has at its foundation very many of the sciences. It deals with nature with living nature. In its field man comes nearest to Here he has made his greatest conquests and his greatest discoveries. The Committee of Fifteen says: "Any science may be taken up best on the side nearest the experience of the pupil." Certainly no other science is so near the experience of so many children as agriculNor does any science more readily lend itself to correct methods of teaching. About 60 per cent. of the children of the elementary schools of America come from the farms, about 20 per cent. from the smaller towns in which the rural spirit predominates, and about 20 per cent. are urban. Tho these last are more in need of this kind of teaching than either of the other classes, and will be reached with the greatest difficulty, still they are not entirely inaccessible, and nature-study lessons correlated with agriculture can be as easily provided for them as can any other lessons in nature study. But this paper relates more particularly to the other two classes,

ture.

How shall the teacher begin? There are many ways. For the lower grades there might be a window garden. There are books that tell how to make this, and what to plant therein, and what to observe and how to describe the observations; also, how to observe the germination of seeds, the development of the young plant, the rooting of cuttings, the development of the green coloring matter, and how it is affected by sunlight. Also there are books that tell how to make a garden out of doors and what to raise there, the best methods of cultivating the ground, and the

reasons therefor. Probably 80 per cent. of all our pupils are in schools where, from the playground or the grass plat, from one-tenth to one-half an acre could be used for a garden, on which not only vegetables could be raised, but the larger fruits-apples, plums, pears, and the like. Here could be studied, not only methods of cultivation, but many things that pertain to the growth of plants; as, how they grow, whence comes the material of their growth, the uses of their various parts-as of leaf, stem, tendril, and flower. The processes of pollination could be observed. The reasons why insects visit plants could be learned, and what insects are beneficial and what are injurious. The life-history of some of these insects can be studied thru the egg, larva, pupa, and imago stages; also upon what they live and where they die. This little plat of ground can easily be made a laboratory, where most delightful experiments can be made, and where knowledge can be gained at first hand. Here the soil can be studied; its origin and nature can be easily discovered; its evolution from the fiery rock to the friable food for plants; the effect of cultivation; how water affects it; what plants impoverish it and what plants enrich it. Here can be demonstrated the most important discovery of modern times a discovery which places in the hands of every farmer a means whereby he can cause to be drawn from the atmosphere the free nitrogen of the air and have it fixed in the soil of any field that he may wish to enrich. This is done by bacteria in the soil, which locate themselves on the roots of legumes and give them power to store up the most valuable constituent of plant food-nitrogen.

LESSONS OF BIRDS

There are other lessons that may be learned in the woods near by. The birds will be there; let the children watch them, learn their songs and know their names and their habits- how they build their nests and get their food and feed their young. Let them look right out of the windows, even during school time, to see what the birds are doing. No well-constituted child ought to be able to sit still when the first oriole of the season sings by the window, or when a bobwhite calls from the fence post.

PROPAGATION OF PLANTS

For the larger boys and girls the garden has more advanced lessons, and work where greater dexterity is required. Let them learn of budding and grafting, and those other methods by which a desirable variety of fruit is propagated. Let them not only learn of these things, but let them learn to do the actual work, and let them see and eat the fruit thereof. Let them learn how one desirable form of fruit, as, for instance, the Wilson strawberry or the Rhode Island greening, has spread itself over the continent. Tell them the story of the Sudduth pear, whose branches are now growing on countless thousands of other roots thruout