Uncle Roberts Geography | Page 2

of literature and art, and of science and history, but it
can be made more practical by focusing it upon the problems connected

with the agriculture and manufactures of the district.
This indicates a career of usefulness for the ambitious teacher of a rural
school. There is a large field for the discipline of the directive power
open even for the humblest of teachers in the land.
These books of Colonel Parker, if read by the school children, and
especially by the elder youth who have left school, will suggest a great
variety of ways in which real mental growth and increase of practical
power may be obtained. The ideal of education in the United States is
that the child in school shall be furnished with a knowledge of the
printed page and rendered able to get out of books the experience of his
fellow-men, and at the same time be taught how to verify and extend
his book knowledge by investigations on his environment. This having
been achieved by the school, nothing except his indolence, or, to give it
a better name, want of enterprise, prevents the individual citizen from
growing intellectually and practically throughout his whole life.
W. T. HARRIS.
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 12, 1897.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Fortunate are the children whose early years are spent in the country in
close contact with the boundless riches which Nature bestows.
Amid these environments instinct and spontaneity do a marvelous work
in the growing minds of children, arousing and sustaining varied and
various interests, enhancing mental activities, and furnishing an
educative outlet for lively energies.
Most fortunate are they to whom, at the moment when the unconscious
teachings of Nature need to be supplemented by thoughtful suggestion,
wise leadings, and judicious instruction, there comes one with a deep
and loving sympathy with child life, an active interest in all that
interests them, and a profound respect for all that children do well and

for all that they know.
Such an one is Uncle Robert. He comes to the children at just the right
moment. He directs the sweet strong streams of their lives onward into
a channel of earnest inquiry and exalted labor, which is ever
broadening and deepening.
Uncle Robert's aim in education is to fill each day with acts which
make home better, the community better, mankind better; to take from
God's bounteous and boundless store of truth and convert it into human
life by using it. His method is simple and direct, founded upon the firm
rock, Common Sense. It may be briefly stated as follows:
1. A strong belief in the sacredness of work--that work which inspires
thought, strengthens the body as well as the mind, and develops the
feeling of usefulness.
2. The images the children have acquired and the inferences they have
made are used as stepping stones to higher and broader views.
3. So far as it is possible, each child is to discover facts for himself and
make original inferences.
4. He understands the limits of children's power to observe and the
demand on their part for glimpses into, to them, the great unknown. So
he tells them stories of those things which lie beyond their horizon, in
order to excite their wonder, intensify their love for the objects that
surround them, and make them more careful observers. In this way a
hunger and thirst for books is created.
5. He watches carefully the interests of each child, adapting his
teachings to the differences in age and personality.
6. Some questions are left unanswered in order to stimulate that healthy
curiosity which can be satisfied only by persistent study--the study that
begets courage and confidence.
7. He makes farm work and farm life full of intensely interesting

problems, ever keeping in mind that the things of which the common
environments of common lives are made up are as well worthy of study
as are those which lie beyond.
Uncle Robert's enthusiasm has for its prime impulse a boundless faith
in human progress, brought about by a knowledge of childhood and its
possibilities.
He believes that every normal child, under wise and loving guidance,
may become useful to his fellows, moral in character, strong in intellect,
with a body which is an efficient instrument of the soul; in other words,
truly educated.
Those who read Uncle Robert's Visit should read through the eyes of
Susie, Donald, and Frank. The reading, so far as possible, should be
accompanied by personal observation, investigation, and experiment.
FRANCIS W. PARKER.
CHICAGO NORMAL SCHOOL, August 31, 1897.

CONTENTS.
I. UNCLE ROBERT'S COMING
II. FRANK DRAWS A MAP OF THE FARM
III. THE NEW THERMOMETER
IV. WITH THE ANIMALS
V. IN THE FLOWER GARDEN
VI. SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW
VII. THE BAROMETER
VIII. A WALK IN THE WOODS

IX. THE BIRDS AND