with aversion-will, under the wise instruction of his teacher, show their economic value; and the child will take steps toward their conservation rather than their destruction. My pupils were very much interested in a colony of earthworms that they had set up in a lamp chimney where they could observe their burrowing and also their feeding on dead carnation leaves. Thus they had a miniature exhibition of what the earthworms in the garden do in making passages for the rain to descend to the roots and in mixing humus and loam. The general ignorance of the value of the toad as an indispensable garden assistant is often quite surprising. I once asked a class of seventh and eighth grade Milwaukee boys to bring me what they thought a toad would eat. I received bits of roast beef, bread, cake, and candy. Not a child thought of an insect or a worm. The toad, of course, remained immovable on the presentation of the children's delicacies; but when I set before it a caterpillar and it snapped up the wriggling creature with quick intelligence, there was great surprise and excitement among the audience. I asked the same class if it was true that toads gave people warts. They firmly declared that it was, while several of them pointed out certain warts they had received from toads, stating the time and occasion of the transfer.

In connection with the garden work we should teach the little one how birds are of personal use to him both as insect and as seed eaters. Let him study preferably those birds that he is likely to meet in his yard, in the trees about his residence, on the margin of river and lake. He should be taught how to attract desirable birds to live about his home.

It has been my experience that a child is more interested in a garden of his own at his home than he is in a class garden on the school ground. Some of the rural schools are giving credit toward graduation to those children who do successful home planting and cultivating. This of course, requires inspection by the teacher. Perhaps teachers may imagine that their poorest pupils cannot find a place about their homes for this work; but it would not be difficult for such people to secure window boxes. Mr. Peaslee of the Milwaukee Public Museum saw and took a picture of one child's garden that was made in an old shoe.

If we look about our city streets to see how sadly Milwaukee trees are neglected, some of them allowed to be overcome by disease, others mutilated by the work of ignorant trimmers-we

may realize how beneficial it would be to Milwaukee to give the young instruction in the care of trees. Were we to teach our children to thoroughly admire and respect a noble tree, to call it by name, to know how many years it has taken it to arrive at its beautiful maturity, to know something of the insect pests that infest it and the best methods of eradicating these pests, we might one day rear a generation of citizens whose legislation would provide Milwaukee with a chief forester and enough assistants to prevent the devastation of hundreds of our trees by the cottonyscale and the white-marked tussock moth. How Milwaukee people respect an old tree was shown last year when two noble elms on the corner of State and Twelfth Streets were felled for the accommodation of the streetcar company because the beautiful intricate lace-work of their branches interfered with the hideous trolley wires; and scarcely a protesting voice was raised against this outrage on two trees that had given a protecting shadow to Milwaukee pedestrians when the city was in its youth.

The education given in our common schools is supposed to provide the child of the masses with the rudiments of what he will need in his struggle for an existence. Yet the great agricultural United States has not, until quite recently, seen fit to introduce into its courses of study for elementary schools anything that will incline a child to agriculture. A city boy who is interested in the planting of trees, shrubs, vegetables, and flowers is learning practical lessons every day that are not only useful to him as a child but will lay the foundation for more extensive work along that line for the future whether his manhood is to be spent in urban or in rural districts. The majority of people have no use in after life for a large percentage of the arithmetic and the geography taught in the grades. Could not the time be better employed by giving the child something more practical and enjoyable? And why should a child not be directed toward horticulture or bee culture rather than toward some unrenumerative city employment a position as dry-goods clerk or the work of a pale-faced, emaciated, bookkeeper? Even city people may successfully carry on some branches of farming, such as the raising of mushrooms, celery, or poultry.

I believe also that nature-study will give a student a good foundation for the biology and geology of the college, because he will have a broader understanding of plant and animal life and

will be more interested in plant and animal evolution and structure as a consequence of the preliminary nature training, while his little lessons in physiography will bear the same relation to his geology. Science has been making such great strides of advancement in recent years that the demand for scientifically trained men and women to fill a variety of positions is greater than it has ever been. The nature-study may lead some child toward the pursuit of a scientific education who might otherwise never realize he would have a liking for that kind of work.

In teaching nature in the Milwaukee public schools the teacher labors at a decided disadvantage under the meager and impractical course of study supplied her. The entire course consists of vegetables, flowers, trees, and birds. With the exception of birds, animal life has been entirely neglected. It would be more practical for a Milwaukee child to study about the horse or the toad than the cedar waxwing. A certain little fifth grade girl who had studied the cedar waxwing lamented because she had never beheld the exquisitely colored creature. Yet she probably never would see it in the heart of the city where she lived; for the bird is spasmodic in its flight, and its appearance can be depended upon at no certain time or place. It likes to frequent regions abounding in cherries and strawberries; consequently a little girl might have to wait a long time before seeing it in the busy streets of a large city. While a Milwaukee child is spending time on the sea gull or the nighthawk, a small citizen of Sturgeon Bay, a city surrounded by cherry orchards, might study the waxwing quite advantageously.

If a man could cast out from his life one of his greatest plaguesthe destructive work of insects-with that ease and nonchalance that Milwaukee has eliminated insect study from its course, what a cheerful prospect life would present for the future! I argue that it would be far more profitable for a city child to be familiar with the habits of human and household insect pests than dwell at length on the phlox or petunia as he is supposed to do in the second and fourth grades respectively. It is not necessary for a child to spend a great amount of time on the structure of a great variety of flowers, because that sort of work can be more properly taken up in high schools and colleges. The elm-leaf beetle, the plant louse, and the garden slug are more vital problems for the city people than the structure of the geranium or the poetulaca work designated for the eighth and fifth grades respectivly. No refer

ence is made in the course of study to the different kinds of soils, rock formations or disintegrations, or the work of sand, pebbles, or streams. There are not enough suggestions for teaching given in the little book to enable teachers to get an idea how to approach this subject that is generally acknowledged to be poorly taught; nor is there a reference to show where approved reading matter or methods may be found.

I believe that some teachers who fail in the teaching of this subject do so because they do not have the object to be studied before the eyes of the child, and they tell or read him the nature story instead of allowing him the pleasure of discovery. I recently asked a Milwaukee child, who was supposed to study the squash. in the fifth grade, what she knew about the plant and what the teacher and pupils had done with it. She had seen a squash and its seeds and had eaten squash at her own dinner table, and she told me with some pride that her teacher illustrated everything beautifully on the blackboard; but the child had never been induced to plant a squash and had never witnessed the wonderful sprouting of its seed which shows so nicely plant differentiation and adaptation. Then, too, a teacher often hesitates about undertaking the teaching of nature because she feels ignorant of the subject matter and imagines one must have a scientific education. to do successful work. Though undoubtedly training in science is a distinct advantage, one cannot possibly be a specialist in all the branches she is required to teach in the common schools, and creditable work may be done by any teacher who is willing to make the preparation necessary for each individual lesson. Without this preparation she does not know what possibilities for the child lie in the subject she is to present.

A nature lesson should be conducted by the teacher's questions, directions, and suggestions of how to work, the teacher telling as little as possible, the child doing his assigned work with practically no help. He is thus kept alert in his observations of natural phenomena. His ability to eliminate unnecessary details and to abstract from his observations that which will be most useful to him in the interpretation of some new situation or condition increases with each lesson until he is often able to surprise his teacher with his thinking power. An interesting instance of this was shown me last week by my fourth grade pupils. I had written some questions on the board about crayfish among which were these?

Can a crayfish hear? If so, where are its ears?

Can a crayfish smell? If it can, find its nose.

I did not expect my pupils to answer either of these questions. I like to give them occasional ones that I know they cannot answer, just to set them to thinking. But to my surprise, several pupils insisted that the little white spots at the base of the antenules were its ears. I pondered for some time over the way in which they got the information. There was no book at their command, and I thought it hardly possible any one could have told them. I afterwards discovered that they had arrived at their conclusion in this way: It could hear; that was evident from its behavior. There were no ears in the place where ears were supposed to be. They had come upon the little white spots at the base of the antenules when they were studying the animal; and remembering a lesson they had had last fall on the grasshopper when on each front leg on each knee joint was found a roundish spot which . proved to be an ear, they decided that if grasshoppers could have their ears on their knee joints, crayfish might have them at the base of their feelers. They could find nothing that looked like a nose; so they decided that the sense of smell lay in the antennæ by the way the animal used them when walking and when examining its food. They also brought their knowledge of ants' sense of smell to their assistance in the solution of this problem.

soms.

A question requiring a thoughtful answer may often be given incidentally without any great preparation on the part of the teacher. For example, in the spring the children come with pussywillow twigs which I place in water so that the emergence of the blossoms from the furry coats may be seen. It is a great surprise to the children to learn that willows, elms, and maples have blosThe flowers, being comparatively inconspicuous, have escaped their observation. I ask them, "Which appears first on a plant in the spring-leaves or blossoms?" They answer leaves, of course, and reference is generally made to the apple tree. But we turn to our pussies in the window that are yellow with pollen when not a green leaf is in sight. Here is an apparent inconsistency; but they have learned by experience that there is no such thing as a freak in nature, that there is some reason for every deviation from the beaten path. I ask them to watch the blossoming of various trees and to let me know some day why the apple tree sends out its