Excerpt from Agriculture and Life: A Text-Book for Normal Schools and Teachers Reading Circles

This book was written for teachers. It was written by one who for years has taught Agriculture and Nature Study to pupils of all grades and ages. Most of the book consists of lectures delivered many times before Farmers' and Teachers' Institutes. The book is intended for Teachers' Reading Circles and Normal Training Classes.

This book does not take the place of the text-book, such as Davis's Productive Farming. This book is written by one of a large number of teachers who believe that we should teach from things largely and teach by having pupils do things worth while at home. This book should be of help on the teacher's desk as a guide for her daily work.

Agriculture must at all times be closely correlated with the home activities of the pupils. School Agriculture aims to teach things that are new, are a little more worth while doing than what is being done, that being true, a book cannot present matter for all time and cover our big, varied country. The best things to do will be changing, and hence a book is hardly off the press before it is out of date. A book on teaching Agriculture will be valuable for its suggestions and for the enthusiasm it puts into the teachers to take hold of the work.

The subjects presented in School Agriculture should have seasonal sequence. Schools open in September, at that time the home folk are gathering grain, garden vegetables and seeds. As cold weather approaches the home folk begin to prepare for sheltering the plants and animals, then winter comes and the home folk feed the stock, take part in the grain and stock shows, plan the farm and the work for another year. As spring approaches they become interested in the soil, crop rotations, plowing, etc. It will be noticed that the chapters largely follow the seasonal interests of the folk on the farms.

But it is to be hoped that the teacher will not kill the interest in Agriculture by following too rigidly a course of study. Therefore suggestions are given in nearly every chapter for work to be done in other months of the year.

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