Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1912-04-12
Rural Teacher and Agriculture
III. E. Mccartney in Iowa Homestead

lme.' While teacher by her interest
and sympathy is encouraging a boy
with live stock booklet, she may
be instilling into him an inspiration
that will lead him to become one OF
the great stock breeders OF the coun-
| try as well as to be more happy and
| contented in life.
With the other studies there Is a
splendid opportunity for correlation.
In geogra Apply when the origin of soils
| or the crops of different regions are
studied, they are facts that are really
agricultural. Some teachers put
special emphasis upon those features.
Not long ago a young enthusiastic
teacher told OF having splendid re-
suits from teaching the geogra ply OF
farm crops in this manner. There Is
abundant material In any rural dis
| trict to furnish practical problems
with which to supplement the afith-
| nletic. The failure to make arith-
metic practical is one Of the standing
| jokes of our modern education. To
count the stand OF corn in field ad-
| joining the school ground and to fig
ure the average stand and then to
| compute how much larger the yield
might have been had the stand been
perfect, is of infinitely greater value
than it is to figure the cube root Of
some impossible number or to COM
pute discount and premiums on Wall
street bonds.
In reading it is very easy to supple
| ment the regular work with agricul-
tural material. AS regards the literary
features there is no trade or class
! journalism DEVELOPED to SO high a
plane as is the agricultural. The
| school can well be supplied with some
OF those papers of the better class.
Only those we'll illustrated are adapt
ed for this use. Small children IN
able to read the articles will enjoy
the pictures. In this way it serves a
very useful purpose in schools. There
| is opportunity to allow the pupils to
read agricultural clippings from the
boys and girls departments In place
Of the stereotyped assignment from
| the books. In history by little extra
iattention the evolution and develop
ment Of agriculture can be emphasized.
| There are teachers who are max
ing history just as interesting to their
| classes when it is studied from the
standpoint of the evolution Of the
farm home or general agricultural pro-
gress as from the standpoint Of gov
eminent. That George Washington was
a farmer and similar facts may be en-
| phasized without reference to anything
outside any standard school text book.
Many things may be done aside
| from the regular work. The pupils
will be only too glad Of chance to
make collection OF the different soil
types in the locality. Some teachers
have been most successful In collect
ing weed pests OF the neighborhood
Another made large collection Of IN
sects. Another, a town girl at that
made seed collection which she be-
lieves to have been the one thing dur
ing two years in the same school that
interested her pupils most. Teachers
who have had work in an agricultural
short course often start some work
in corn jud ging. The teacher may not
know a great deal about It herself
. but IL she arouses the people Of the
district to the desirability Of having
better seed she WILL have done her
duty. One young lady in Minnesota
went back to her country school from
la short course and started work in
corn testing. Her patrons were so well
pleased that she was given a voluntar,
raise Of SO per month. A few years
\ ago a teacher in Nebraska saw me
! chanical genius in one Of heI