PREFACE

This book is intended to be helpful to all school officers, and teachers, and to parents, in fact, to all who have anything to do with the teaching and training of youth. The problems presented and discussed are the problems that all who belong to any one of these classes have to meet.

The book is full of concrete illustrations drawn almost entirely from the writer’s own record of cases he has observed and studied. In fact, it is a teacher’s case book. The boys, of whom there are many, the girls, and the teachers, who appear on its pages are not fictitious people ; but each one is a real character true to life.

The writer is often asked what he would do with- this boy or that boy; this girl or that girl; this teacher or that teacher; this school situation or that school situation. An open confession of what he has tried to do in his own school with boys, girls, teachers, and school situations, and the manner of doing revealing the spirit in which he has tried to do his school work, is his answer.

The closing paragraph or paragraphs in many of the chapters are intended to direct the reader’s attention to the lesson or lessons in pedagogy the story is intended to teach, for the purpose of aiding him in understanding similar cases or situations in his own work, and in suggesting to him possible solutions. In an appendix a further consideration is given of some cases from each chapter.

The whole book emphasizes the great importance of child-study to all who have to do with youth. A study not only of some of the instructive books that have been written on this subject, but also a careful, sympathetic observation and study of the boys and girls under their care, in the school, the home, or elsewhere. Books must receive their full share of attention, but these pages place the emphasis on the study of the flesh and blood boys and girls.

In presenting some of the characteristics of the physical and of the mental life movements of youth as discovered and recorded by special students of this subject, the writer has seen these characteristics verified again and again in the many boys and girls whom he has carefully observed and studied, still he lays no claim to original discovery of any of them. Even in giving these facts, he lays no claim to the form of the statements. In many instances, he has quoted the language of the specialists; in others he has held so closely to the form in which specialists have stated these facts, that these parts, too, might almost be included in parentheses.

It is a knowledge of these facts of the life of youth that he has ever had in mind while working with pupils in the grammar grades and scholars in the high school. In stating these facts, he had drawn largely on the writings of Dr. G. Stanley Hall, Dr. William H. Burnham, Dr. Arthur H. Daniels, and others.

And lastly the book teaches that the teacher, the parent, or anyone who would rightly direct child-life at its emotional flood-tide, must make a careful study of himself that he may be in the right attitude toward the youth for whose instruction, guidance, or care, he is responsible.

J. K. Stableton.

SWEET CLOVER ILLUSTRATION

Three years ago the Iowa State Agricultural College, from its experimental department, sent out over the United States and Canada, to other agricultural experiment stations, and to thousands of private- persons interested in agriculture, small packets of annual sweet clover seed that owed its origin to a single plant of an annual character that appeared, as if by accident, in a pot of biennial (two years) sweet clover at the Iowa Agricultural experiment station.

Biennial sweet clover had been known for a number of years as a valuable farm crop. Annual sweet clover, one year sweet clover, was something new.

The Iowa Agriculture experiment station sent out the packets of this annual sweet clover seed that it might be tested in all parts of this country and Canada where biennial sweet clover grows; to have it tested under all possible conditions to find out whether or not the newly discovered clover was of value for agricultural purposes.

Only a short time ago I received a bulletin from the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station setting forth the results of that station’s testing annual sweet clover. The bulletin showed the results of very close observation and study of the plant. Point after point as observed was set down. First, the plant proved to be an annual; that is, the seed planted in the spring ripened seed the latter part of the summer of the same year, then died.

The plant on good soil free from weeds, made a growth equal to the growth made by the biennial sweet clover the second year.

The annual sweet clover plant made less foliage than the biennial sweet clover.

The annual sweet clover plant had a smaller root system than the biennial variety.

In this manner all the results of the observation of the plant were stated. But had the bulletin gone no further than to give these results of observation of the plant, it would not have been the valuable bulletin that it is. The work of observation was very carefully followed up by a thorough study of the data gathered by observation, and the results of this study were given in the bulletin together with the data of observation.

The annual plant made a growth the first year equal to the growth made by the biennial sweet clover the second year, but the annual sweet clover had less foliage on its stems than the biennial sweet clover so was less valuable as a hay crop than the biennial type. But the annual sweet clover makes a heavy crop of hay the first year and while the quality is somewhat inferior, still under some conditions this large crop of hay the first year makes annual sweet clover more valuable than the biennial in some situations. The results of long and careful study are here given to all farmers.

But why is so much time, study and expense devoted to this plant? What is the purpose of all this labor? The object in view is to know annual siveet clover in order to determine whether or not it has sufficient value under some conditions to give it a place in agriculture.

This observation of the plant to see how it responds to this or that condition of soil, to this or that condition of climate, to cultivation, or to no cultivation, and the thoughtful study of all the data secured in this manner, are the means by which the usefulness of a variety of plants may be determined. All the qualities of the plant must be known, otherwise a plant of great agricultural value under some conditions, might be cast aside as useless.

I have dwelt quite at legnth on how the scientist observes and studies a plant in order that he may know the plant. I have so dwelt on this bit of plant observation and study that those who teach and train youth, or have anything to do in directing youth, may see that as the scientist observes and studies plants, so should these guardians of youth observe and study boys and girls that they may know them physically, mentally and emotionally during their growing years, and as much as possible in their body and mind birth inheritances; that they may know the physical and mental qualities of the boys and girls as the scientist in the Botanical field knows a plant.

But how much higher the purpose of knowing on the part of these teachers of youth than on the part of the scientific student of the plant! As in the case of annual sweet clover, the scientist would know all the qualities of the plant to determine whether or not it is sufficiently useful to make it worth preserving, so the teachers and guardians of youth would know all the qualities of each individual youth not for the purpose of determining whether or not the boy or girl is worth saving; but that they may so adapt their teaching and training to each boy and each girl that the finest qualities of body and soul of each one may be developed in the best possible manner.

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Diary of a Western Schoolmaster (1900) (pdf)