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The nature- study idea

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THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

THE NATURE-STUDY

IDKA BEING AN INTERPRETA-
TION OF THE NEW SCHOOL-
MOVEMENT TO PUT THE CHILD
IN SYMPATHY WITH NATURE

^ BY

L: H, BAILEY

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1905

Copyright, 1903, by
Doubleday, Page & Company

Published, April, 1903

. ill rights reserved,

including that of translation into foreign languages,

including the Scandinavian.

CONTENTS

"N.

PART I
What Nature-Study Is

I. What Is Nature-Study ? . . . .

II. Who Originated the Term Nature-Study ?

III. The Meaning of the Nature-Study Movement

rV. The Integument-Man

V. Nature-Study with Plants ....

VI. The Growing of Plants by Children — The School
Garden .......

VII. The Agricultural Phase of Nature-Study

VIII. Review

PAG£

3

6

14
37
43

51

62
86

PART II

The Interpretation of Nature

I. The Interpretation of Nature

II. Science for Science's Sake . . . .

III. The Extrinsic and Intrinsic Views of Nature

IV. Must a '* Use " be Found for Everything ? .
V. The New Hunting . . . • .

VI. The Poetic Interpretation of Nature
VII. An Outlook on Winter . . . .

PAGE
91

97
102
108
116
124

CONTENTS— Continued

PART III

Some Practical Inquiries
AND Some Ways of Answering Them

How Shall I Know What Subjects to Choose ?

But If the Child Choose the Material, the Subject Wil
Lack Continuity : What Then ? . . .

Then Would You Give No Heed to Continuity ? .

How Shall I Make a Start ?

Is Not Subject-Matter the First Consideration ?

Would You Teach Heat, Light and Physics as Nature
Study Topics ? .

Would You Teach '* Practical " and ** Useful" Things ?

Would You Teach Objects that the Child Cannot See and
Determine for Itself ? . . . . «

How Much Apparatus Do I Need ? ...

Is It '' Thorough " ? . ,^ . . . .

But Will Not This Nature-Study Be Called Superficial ?

But Do You Think That This Nature-Study Will Make
Investigators ?.....,.

Will Not This Nature-Study Tend Still Further to Over
burden the School ? ,

Shall We Teach the Child to Collect, and Thereby to Kill

Would You Tell the Child the Names of the Things ?

Would You Begin by First Reading to the Child About
Nature ?

Now That There Are So Many Nature-Books, How Shal
I Choose the Most Useful One ? . . .

How Shall I Acquire Sufficient Knowledge to Enable Me
to Teach Nature-Study ? . . , .

PAGE

132

133
134

135
135

136
136
137

138

138

14.0

141
141

142
142

143

CONTENTS— Continued

PAGE

Is It Best to Have a Professional Nature-Study Teacher to

Go from School to School ?..... 145

Should the Parts of a School-Garden Be Apportioned to

Pupils, or Should the Work Be Done in Common ? . 145

Why Should This Nature-StudyBe Confined to the Schools ? 1 50

What Shall We Do with the Children in the Summer

Vacation? . . 151

Will Not This Nature-Study Work Interfere <vith School

Disciphne ? , . 152

Shall I Correlate the Nature-Study Work with Other Work ? 153

Is Nature-Study on the Wane ? 157

Would You Advise Me to Take Up Nature-Study Teach-
ing? 159

PART I

The Nature-Study Idea

WHAT IS NATURE-STUDY?

A CONTRIBUTOR to a recent issue of a leading
technical journal has endeavored to find a satis-
factory answer to the question, "What is nature-
study?" by appealing to "eminent scientific men/'
The answers of these men are printed there in
full. Now, the nature-study movement is a
product of the common schools, not of scientific
investigation. Eminent scientific attainment, as
such, is not to be expected to enable persons to
give satisfactory answer to the question, for the
subject is not in its realm. Happily, many
scientific men are also closely in touch with
elementary education, and therefore are fully com-
petent to discuss the nature-study movement; but
it is this very touch with the common schools,
not their eminent scientific achievements, that
gives them this competency. Some of the answers
referred to above are ideal definitions from the
child-teacher's point of view.

To be sure, the term nature-study etymologi-
cally implies only the study of nature; and
** nature" is, by conventionality, understood to

4 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

mean the world of outdoor objects and phenom-
ena. But all words and terms mean less or
more than their mere etymology would imply,
and this meaning is determined by usage. Now
usage has determined a definite office for the
name nature-study: it designates the movement
originating in the common schools to open the
pupil's mind by direct observation to a knowledge
and love of the common things in the child's
environment. It is a pedagogical term, not a scien-
tific term. It is not synonymous with the old
term "natural history," nor with *' biology," nor
with "elementary science." It is not "popular
science." It is not the study of nature merely.
Nature may be studied with either of two objects:
to discover new truth for the purpose of increas-
ing the sum of human knowledge ; or to put the
pupil in a sympathetic attitude toward nature for
the purpose of increasing the joy of living. The
first object, whether pursued in a technical or
elementary way, is a science-teaching movement,
and its professed purpose is to make investigators
and specialists. The second object is a nature-
study movement, and its purpose is to enable
every person to live a richer life, whatever his
business or profession may be. Nature-study is
a revolt from the teaching of mere science in
the elementary grades. In teaching-practice, the
work and the methods of the two intergrade, to
be sure, and as the high school and college are
approached, nature-study passes into science-
teaching, or gives way to it ; but the ideals are

WHAT IS NATURE-STUDY? 5

distinct — they should be contrasted rather than
compared.

Nature-study is not science. It is not knowl-
edge. It is not facts. It is spirit. It is con-
cerned with the child's outlook on the world.

Nature-study will endure, because it is natural
and of universal application. Methods will
change and will fall into disrepute; its name
will be dropped from curriculums ; here and there
it will be encased in the schoolmaster's "method'*
and its life will be smothered; now and then
it will be overexploited ; with many persons it
will be a fad: but the spirit will live.

So common is the misconception of the mean-
ing and mission of the nature-study movement,
that I cannot resist the temptation to bring
together in book form a few notes and essays on
some of the more salient features of it, even if the
resulting book lack somewhat in homogeneity and
have some repetitions. These pieces have been
written at intervals in the past six years. Most of
them were prepared for specific occasions, for the
purpose of discussing disputed points or of answer-
ing challenges ; some have been prepared specially
for this collection. Some of them have been
published. They are offered in all humility,
since every person's view is necessarily colored by
his own field of observation; but on the main
thesis — that nature-study teaching is one thing
and that science-teaching for science's sake is
another — I have no hesitation.

II

WHO ORIGINATED THE TERM NATURE-STUDY?

A BRIEF history of the origin of the contem-
porary nature-study movement will clarify our
ideas as to its spirit and purpose. I am aware
that the history that follows is incomplete, and
that persons who were connected with the begin-
nings of it are not mentioned; but I believe that
the account will be useful in giving us perspective,
and in establishing an approximate date for the
first use of the term.

I have engaged in a large correspondence for
the purpose of discovering something of the
history of the nature-study movement. Oftenest,
perhaps, I have been referred to the teaching of
Agassiz at Penikese as the beginning, at least in
this country. Agassiz, however, did not teach
nature-study in the special sense in which we use
this term, although he gave us the motto, " Study
nature, not books." He taught the study of nature
by the " natural method." His instruction was
given from the investigator's or the specialist's view-
point, and it was intended primarily for students
and adults. The present nature-study movement,
as I have said, is a product of the elementary
schools, not of universities, although many
university and college men have been instrumental

(6)

HISTORY OF NATURE-STUDY 7

in forwarding it. Cornell was perhaps the first uni-
versity to take it up as a distinct enterprise (1895),
but the movement was already well under way
in many places at that time. At this institution
it became an extension-teaching movement.
Professor C. F. Hodge of Clark University, under
the inspiration of Stanley Hall, began popular
work in nature-study in 1897.

The nature-study movement is a natural out-
growth of the modern teaching and investigating
in what we call natural science. No doubt it
has been quickened, as a school subject, by the
making of what we know as outdoor books.

Nature-study is not primarily a natural-history
subject: it is primarily a pedagogical ideal.
Natural-history subjects arc the means, not the
end. Its beginnings are certainly as old as the
time of Socrates and Aristotle. It is a fruit
of the great educational reformers — Comenius,
Pestalozzi, Jean J. Rousseau, Froebel and the rest.
In a large measure, the spirit of our present-day
nature-study movement — which seems so new to
us — is a recrudescence. Just now it represents a
reaction from the dry-as-dust science-teaching.

What we may legitimately call nature-study
began to take form in this country from 1884 to
1890. Who first used the term I do not know;
and it is of small consequence, because the term
may mean much or nothing. The term appears
to have been at first a substitute for "object les-
sons," " plant work," ** elementary science," and
the like, because it came to be felt that these

8 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

things represented mere intellectual ideals and
school "methods." Dr. Piez, of the Oswego
(N. Y.) Normal School, makes the following
comment on the pedagogical origin of the nature-
study idea : " I have come to the conclusion
that nature-study in spirit, if not in name, is the
direct descendant of object teaching. Object
teaching aimed at the use of the senses in acquiring
knowledge, and was introduced to displace the
mechanical * memory ' method current in the
schools. It was responsible for raising the prob-
lem of method among thoughtful teachers. But
the ' lessons on objects ' were justly deserving the
criticism that they were disconnected, and that the
knowledge resulting from them was a knowledge
of isolated facts not organized into a comprehen-
sive whole.'* I will mention a few persons who
were early in the field, for the purpose of showing
something of the geography and motives of the
movement.

Although the teaching of Agassiz may not
have been nature-study, as we understand the
term, it is undoubtedly true that the present
nature-study movement is a proximate result of
the forces that he set in motion. A strong appli-
cation of this influence to school-life was made in
Boston by Alpheus Hyatt and Lucretia Crocker.
In various places, others of Agassiz's followers
carried his spirit into the schools. One of the
most powerful early adaptations of his teach-
ing to the common-school work was made at the
State Normal School at Oswego, N. Y. There

HISTORY OF NATURE-STUDY 9

was a strong Pestalozzian influence in this institu-
tion, under the leadership of the late Dr.
Sheldon. Professor H. H. Straight went to
Oswego in 1876. He had come under the
influence of Agassiz and Shaler. He was a
student of science, but his views of science
teaching in the elementary school underwent
gradual but decided change, under the Pestalozzian
influence in which he was placed. He saw
the insufficiency of "object teaching" as an edu-
cational process. The defects he sought to over-
come by " correlation of the subjects of study.'*
As director of the practice school, he worked out
his ideas of correlation in "nature'' subjects and
geography subjects. His work included the study
of the common things in the neighborhood. In
1883 Professor Straight went to the Cook County
(Ills.) Normal School and taught there until
his death, in 1886. He had great influence in
developing the ideals of this institution, and was
given credit therefor by Colonel Parker, the
distinguished head of the school. So far as I
know, however. Professor Straight did not use the
term " nature-study."

The introduction of elementary science as an
organic part of school work, ranking with arith-
metic and grammar, was made in the Cook
County (Ills.) Normal School as early as 1889,
under the presidency of Francis W. Parker.
This introduction was made by Wilbur S.
Jackman, whose teaching and writing in nature-
study lines are well known. In 1884 Mr.

lo THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

Jackman began teaching biology in the Pittsburg
High School. During five years' connection with
that school he became strongly impressed with
the necessity of having a broad foundation laid in
the elementary grades for the study of science.
The pupils were ignorant of the simplest phenom-
ena that occurred about them. In the spring
of 1889 he planned a general course in nature-
study and presented it to the Superintendent and
the Principals of the ward schools in Pittsburg.
It was agreed that in the fall he should have the
privilege of meeting the teachers for the purpose
of starting this work in the primary and grammar
grades. Before the year closed, however, he
received an invitation from Colonel Parker to enter
the Cook County Normal School and take up the
work with him. He entered on the work in the
Cook County Normal School in the fall of 1889.
During this year (1889) he elaborated the plan
already begun, as above outlined. The features
which perhaps most distinguished this scheme of
nature-study were : ( i ) That it adopted the appar-
ently irregular plan of using all the material
which the " Rolling Year," season by season,
brought into the lives of the children ; (2) that
it rejected the idea of close and specialized study
of inert or dead form and sought to place the
children in the fields and woods that they might
study all nature at work; and (3) that, instead of
looking upon nature-study as being supplementary
to reading, writing and other forms of expression,

nature-study in itself became a demand that these

360s

HISTORY OF NATURE-STUDY ii

subjects should be taught. In the fall of 1890 he
published bi-monthly pamphlets averaging about
75 pages each, which were called " Outlines in
Elementary Science." In the spring of 1 89 1 , upon
the completion of the series, Henry Holt & Com-
pany asked the privilege of reprinting and issuing
them in book form. This was done. There was
considerable correspondence concerning the name,
which resulted finally in the adoption of the term
"Nature-Study for Common Schools," and this
term has been used continuously ever since.

Another, and an independent, movement started
nearly simultaneously in Massachusetts, under the
leadership of Arthur C. Boyden, now Vice-Principal
of the State Normal School at Bridgewater, Mass.
In 1889 a committee was appointed in the
Plymouth County Teachers' Association to recom-
mend a plan of introducing nature-study into
the schools of the county. For a number of
years previous to this time a definite series of
lessons on minerals, plants and animals had been
taught in the Bridgewater Normal School, and
many superintendents and teachers who graduated
from the school were teaching the subjects in
various parts of the county. It seemed to be the
time for a concerted plan of work, and a few
persons who were interested in it took this means
of starting. An outline for the study of trees was
prepared and sent to every school in the county,
with provisions for a report from each town at
the next annual meeting. This plan was con-
tinued for a number of years, and usually an

12 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

exhibition of the results was made. The work
secured such a good hold that the committee was
finally discontinued. In the same year the sub-
ject was taught in the institutes, held each fall
and spring throughout the State under the
auspices of the State Board of Education, and then
for ten years Mr. Boyden taught and lectured
in these institutes from one end of the State to
the other. Printed outlines and illustrated lessons
were given. In 1889, also, a department of
nature-study was established in the summer school
at Cottage City, and Mr. Boyden carried it on
till 1 90 1. The definite beginning of the
movement, as such, in Massachusetts seems to
have been in 1889. At first the work was
called "elementary science,'' but this seemed
to be inappropriate, and "nature-study" was
suggested. This term seemed to be a good
equivalent of the German "Naturkunde'' — nature
knowledge. On all programmes it was thus printed
and quickly secured standing. Shortly after the
movement began, the "Conference of Educational
Workers'' was established. One of the commit-
tees had charge of nature-study and met monthly
in Boston. Mr. G. H. Martin, Agent of the
Board of Education, was chairman, and Mr.
Boyden was secretary. They worked out courses
of study for distribution, and one year they had
a large exhibit from the whole State of the results
of the work. These exhibits were common in
cities between 1890 and 1895.

About 1889 the term nature-study was used

HISTORY OF NATURE-STUDY 13

independently by Frank Owen Payne. He com-
pounded it, using the hyphen at the suggestion
of A. N. Kellogg. Mr. Payne began his work
in nature-study in 1884, when a teacher in Corry,
Pennsylvania. In i 886-1 889 he lectured on the
subject in Minnesota, and later in New Jersey.
Beginning with 1889, he became a regular con-
tributor to the New York School Journal, there
using the term nature-study.

Many schools in several States were introduc-
ing elementary science in the latter part of the
eighties, and it seems that several of them began
to use the term nature-study without knowing
where or how the term was suggested. The
nature-study idea is now widespread and thor-
oughly established. It marks an epochal change
of front in the aims of education, developing the
purpose and the means of putting the child into
relation with the actual world in which he lives.

Ill

THE MEANING OF THE NATURE-STUDY MOVEMENT

It is one of the marks of the evolution of the
race that we are coming more and more into
sympathy with the objects of the external world.
These things are a part of our lives. They are
central to our thoughts. The happiest life has
the greatest number of points of contact with the
world, and it has the deepest feeling and sympathy
for everything that is. The best thing in life is
sentiment ; and the best sentiment is that which
is born of the most accurate knowledge. I like to
make this application of Emerson's injunction to
"hitch your wagon to a star''; but it must not
be forgotten that one must have the wagon before
one has the star. Mere facts are dead, but the
meaning of the facts is life. The getting of in-
formation is but the beginning of education.
*'With all thy getting, get understanding."

Of late years there has been a rapidly growing
feeling that we must live closer to nature ; and we
must perforce begin with the child. We attempt
to teach this nature-love in the schools, and we
call the effort nature-study. It would be better
if it were called nature-sympathy.

As yet there are no codified methods of teach-
ing nature-study. The subject is not a formal

(14)

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 15

part of the curriculum; and thereby it is not
perfunctory. And herein lies much of its value
— in the fact that it cannot be reduced to a system,
is not cut and dried, cannot become a part of rigid
school methods. Its very essence is spirit. It is
as free as its subject-matter, as far removed from
the museum and the cabinet as the skeleton is
from the living animal.

It thus transpires that there is much confusion
as to what nature-study is, because of the different
attitudes of its various exponents ; but these differ-
ent attitudes are largely the reflections of different
personalities and the v^orking out of different
methods. There may be twenty best ways of
teaching nature-study. It is essentially the ex-
pression of one's outlook on the world. We
must define nature-study in terms of its purpose,
not in terms of its methods. It is not doing this
or that. It is putting the child into intimate and
essential contact with the things of the external
world. Whatever the method, the final result of
nature-study teaching is the development of a keen
personal interest in every natural object and
phenomenon.

There are two or three fundamental miscon-
ceptions of what nature-study is or should be ;
and to these we may now give attention.

Fundamentally, nature-study is seeing what one
looks at and drawing proper conclusions from
what one sees ; and thereby the learner comes into
personal relation and sympathy with the object.
It is not the teaching of science — not the sys-

1 6 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

tematic pursuit of a logical body of principles.
Its object is to broaden the child's horizon, not,
primarily, to teach him how to widen the boun-
daries of human knowledge. It is not the
teaching of botany or entomology or geology, but
of plants, insects and fields. But many persons
who are teaching under the name of nature-study
are merely teaching and interpreting elementary
science.

Again, nature-study is studying things and the
reason of things, not about things. It is not
reading from nature-books. A child was asked
if she had ever seen the great dipper. ** Oh, yes,'*
she replied, *'I saw it in my geography." This
is better than not to have seen it at all ; but the
proper place to have seen it is in the heavens.
Nature-readers may be of the greatest use if they
are made incidental and secondary features of the
instruction ; but, however good they may be, their
influence is pernicious if they are made to be
primary agents. The child should first see the
thing. It should then reason about the thing.
Having a concrete impression, it may then go to
the book to widen its knowledge and sympathies.
Having seen mimicry in the eggs of the aphis on
the willow or apple twig, or in the walking-stick,
the pupil may then take an excursion with Wallace
or Bates to the tropics and there see the striking
mimicries of the leaf-like insects. Having seen the
wearing away of the boulder or the ledge, he may
go to Switzerland with Lubbock and see the
mighty erosion of the Alps. Now and then the

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 17

order may be reversed with profit, but this should
be the exception: from the wagon to the star
should be the rule.

Yet again, nature-study is not the teaching of
facts for the sake of the facts. It is not the giving
of information merely — notwithstanding the fact
that some nature-study leaflets are information
leaflets. We must begin with the fact, to be sure,
but the lesson is not the fact but the significance
of the fact. It is not necessary that the fact have
direct practical application to the daily life, for
the object is the effort to train the mind and the
sympathies. It is a common notion that when
the subject-matter is insects, the pupil should be
taught the life-histories of injurious insects and
how to destroy the pests. Now, nature-study may
be equally valuable whether the subject is the
codlin-moth or the ant ; but to confine the pupil's
attention to insects that are injurious to man is to
give him a distorted and untrue view of nature.
A bouquet of daisies does not represent a meadow.
Children should be interested more in seeing
things live than in killing them. Yet I would not
emphasize the injunction, "Thou shalt not kill.''
Nature-study is not recommended for the explicit
teaching of morals. I should prefer to have the
child become so much interested in living things
that it would have no desire to kill them. The
gun and sling-shot and fish-pole will be laid aside
because the child does not like them any more.
We have been taught that one must make collec-
tions if he is to be a naturalist. But collections

1 8 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

make museums, not naturalists. The scientist
needs these collections ; but it does not follow that
children always need them To be taught how to
kill is to alienate the pupil's affection and sympathy
from the object he is studying. It may be said
that it is necessary to kill insects ; the farmer had
this thought in mind when he said to one of our
teachers : " Give us more potato-bug and less
pussy willow." It is true that we must fight
insects, but that is a matter of later practice, not
of education. It should be an application of
knowledge, not a means of acquiring it. ' It may
be necessary to have war, but we do not teach our
children to shoot their playmates.

Nature-study is not merely the adding of one
more thing to a curriculum. It is not coordinate
with geography or reading or arithmetic. Neither
is it a mere accessory, or a sentiment, or an
entertainment, or a tickler of the senses. It is
not "a study." It is not the addition of more
** work." It has to do with the whole point of
view of elementary education, and therefore is
fundamen'tal. It is the full expression of person-
ality. It is the practical working out of the
extension idea that has been so much a part of
our time. More than any other recent movement,
it will reach the masses and revive them. In time
it will transform our ideals and then transform our
methods.

Nature-study stands for directness and naturalness.
It is astonishing, when one comes to think of it,
how indirect and how unrelated to the lives of

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 19

pupils much of our education has been. Geogra-
phies begin with the earth, and finally, perhaps,
come down to some concrete and familiar object
or scene that the pupil can understand. Arithmetic
has to do with brokerage and partnerships and
partial payments and other things that mean nothing
to the child. Botany has to do with cells and
protoplasm and cryptogams. History deals with
political affairs, and only rarely comes down to
physical facts and to those events that have to do
with the real lives of the people ; and yet political
and social affairs are only the results or expressions
of the way in which people live. Readers begin
with mere literature or with stories of things that
the child will never see or do. Of course these
statements are meant to be only general, as illus-
trating what is even yet a great fault in educational
methods. There are many exceptions, and these
are becoming commoner. Surely, the best
education is that which begins with the materials at
hand. A child asks what a stone is before it asks
what the earth is.

How nature-study may be taught.

There are two ways of interpreting nature —
by way of fact and by way of fancy. To the
scientist and to the average man the interpretation
by fact is often the only admissible one. He
may not be open to argument or conviction that
there can be any other truthful way of knowing
the external world. Yet, the artist and the poet
know this world, and they do not know it by

20 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

mere knowledge or by analysis. It appeals to
them in its moods, not in its details. Yet it is
as real to them as to the analyst. Too much are
we of this generation tied to mere phenomena.

We have a right to a poetic interpretation of
nature. The child comes to know nature
through its imagination and feeling and sym-
pathy. Note the intent and sympathetic face
as the child watches the ant carrying its grains of
sand and pictures to itself the home and the bed
and the kitchen and the sisters and the school
that comprise the little ant*s life. What does
the flower think ? Who are the little people that
teeter and swing in the sunbeam? What is the
brook saying as it rolls over the pebbles ? Why
is the wind so sorrowful as it moans on the
house-corners in the dull November days ? There
are elves whispering in the trees, and there are
chariots of fire rolling on the long low clouds at
twilight. Wherever it may look, the young
mind is impressed with the mystery of the
unknown. The child looks out to Nature with
great eyes of wonder.

Child with the gray-blue eyes

Gazing so longingly —
Yonder the great world lies —

All is unknown to thee !

Child unwedded to care,

Softly speedeth the hours —

Thou buildest castles in air

And strew'st thy path with flowers.

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 21

Build 071 in thy dreaming^

Nor thy fancies are vain;
The best of lifers seeming

Are its castles in Spain I

The good New England poets, did not they
know nature ? Have they not left us the very
essence and flavor of the fields and the woods and
the sky ? And yet they were not scientists, not
mere collectors of facts. So different are these
types of interpretation that we all unconsciously
do as I did in my last sentence — we set the poet
over against the scientist.

Yet poetry is not mere sentiment. The poet
has first known the fact. His poetry is misleading
if his observations are wrong. Therefore, as I
have said, I should begin my nature-study with
facts ; for facts are tangible, but sentiments cannot
be seen. Whatever else we are, we must have the
desire to be definite and accurate. We begin on
the earth; later, we may drive our Pegasus to a
star.

Do not misunderstand. I would not teach
nature-subjects in order that the poetic point of
view may be enforced. I plead only that the
poetic interpretation is allowable on occasion.

How shall nature-study be taught ? By the
teacher, not by the book. The teacher will need
helps. There are books and leaflets that will help
him. These publications may be put in the hands
of pupils if it is always made plain that the reci-
tation is to be from things which the pupil has
seen, not from the book. There can be no text-

22 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

book of nature-study, for when one studies a book
he does not study nature. Nature-study books
and leaflets are guides, not texts. The book should
be a guide to the animal or plant : the animal or
plant should not be a guide to the book.

The teacher will need help both in methods and
in facts. The method, however, is not to be a
codified series of laws or a hard-and-fast system ;
but there should be some underlying pedagogical
principle which will run through every item of
the work. There will be opportunity for endless
variation in the details and in the little applications
of the work. The personality of the teacher
must always stand out strongly. We need the
very best of teachers for nature-study work —
those who have the greatest personal enthusiasm,
and who are least bound by the traditions of the
classroom. The teacher, to be ideal, must have
more time, more inspiration and more knowledge.
It is better if the teacher have a large knowledge
of science, but nature-study may be taught with-
out great knowledge if one sees accurately and
infers correctly from the particular subject in
hand.

fThe teacher should studiously avoid starting with
definitions and the setting of patterns. Definitions
should be the result or summary of the study, not
the beginning of it. Mere patterns should only
afford means of comparison, and not be regarded
as useful in themselves ; and even then they are
often misleading. The old idea of the model
flower is an unfortunate one, simply because the

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 1! 23

model flower does not exist in nature. The
model flower, the complete leaf, and the like, are
inferences ; and the pupil should begin with
things and not with mere ideas. In other words,
the ideas should be suggested by the things, and
not the things by the ideas. " Here is a drawing
of a model flower/' the old method says ; '* go
and find the nearest approach to it." **Go and
find me a flower,*' is the true method, ** and let
us see what it is."

Two factors determine the proper subjects for
nature-study. First, the subject must be that in
which the teacher is most interested and of which
he has the most knowledge; second, the subject
must be that which is commonest and which can
be most easily seen and appreciated by the pupil,
and which is nearest and dearest to his life. The
tendency is to go too far afield for the subject-
matter. We are more likely to know the wonders
of China or Brazil than of our own brooks and
woods. If the subject-matter is of such kind that
the children can collect the objects as they come and
go from the school, the results will be the better.

With children, begin with naked-eye objects.
As the pupil matures and becomes interested, the
simple microscope may be introduced now and
then. Children of twelve years and more may carry
a pocket lens ; but the best place to use this lens is
in the field. The best nature-study observation is
that which is done out-of-doors ; but some of it
can be made from material brought into the
schoolroom.

24 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

It is a sound pedagogical principle that the child
should not be taught those things that are neces-
sarily foreign to the sphere of its life and experi-
ences. It should not have mere dilutions of
science. The young child cannot understand
cross-fertilization of flowers, and should not be
taught the subject. The subject is beyond the
child's realm. When we teach it, we are only
translating what grown-up investigators have dis-
covered by means of faithful search. At best, it
will only be an exotic thing to the child. Pollen
and stamens are not near and dear to the child.

There are three factors in the teaching of nature-
study :

( 1 ) The fact,

(2) The reason for the fact,

(3) The interrogation left in the mind of the
pupil.

It is impossible to find a natural history object
from which these three factors cannot be drawn,
for every object is a fact and every fact has a cause,
and children may be interested in both the fact
and the cause. It may be better, of course, to
choose definite subjects, taking pains, at least at
first, to select those having emphatic characters.
But even in the dullest days of winter sufficient
material may be found to keep the interest aflame.
A twig or branch may be at hand. There should
be enough specimens to supply each child. Let
the teacher ask the pupils what they see. The
replies will discover the first factor in the teach-
ing— the fact. However, not every fact is signi-

%Tstci^ Come

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 25

ficant to the teacher or to the particular pupils.
It remains for the teacher to pick out the fact or
answer that is most significant. The teacher
should know what is significant and he should
keep the point clearly before him. One pupil
says that the twig is long ; another that it is
brown ; another that it is crooked ; another that
it is from an apple tree ; another that it has several
unlike branchlets or parts. Now, this last reply
may appeal to the teacher as a most significant
fact. Stop the questioning and open the second
epoch in the instruction — the reason why no
two parts are alike. As before, from the great
number of responses the significant reason may be
developed : it is because no two parts have lived
under exactly the same conditions. One had
more room or more sunlight and it grew larger.
The third epoch follows naturally : are there
any two objects in nature exactly alike ? Let the
pupils think about it.

Choose a stone. If similar stones are passed
about to the pupils, you ask first for the observa-
tion or the fact. One says the stone is long ;
another, it is light ; another, it is heavy ; another,
that the edges are rounded. This latter fact is
very significant. You stop the observation and
ask why it is rounded. Some one replies that it
is because it is water-worn. Query : Are all
stones in brooks rounded ? Numberless applica-
tions and suggestions can be made from this simple
lesson. What becomes of the particles that are
worn away ? How has soil been formed r How

26 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

has the surface of the fields been shaped and
molded ?

It is not necessary that the teacher always know
the reason. He can ask the pupils to find out and
report next day. It is the strong teacher who
can say : " I do not know.'* If a problem had
been sent to Agassiz or Asa Gray and he had
not understood it, would he have dissimulated or
have evaded in the answer ? Would he not
have said boldly "I do not know" ? Such men
delve for knowledge, but for every fact that
they discover they turn up a dozen mysteries.
Knowledge begins in wonder. The conscious-
ness of ignorance is the first result of wonder, and
it leads the pupil on and on : it is the spirit of
inquiry.

These illustrations are given merely as examples.
They may not be ideal, but they show what can
be done with very common material. In fact,
the surprise and interest is often all the greater
because the objects are so very common and
familiar.

To my mind, the best of all subjects for nature-
study is a brook. It affords studies of many kinds.
It is near and dear to every child. It is an
epitome of the nature in which we live. In
miniature, it illustrates the forces which have
shaped much of the earth's surface. It reflects
the sky. It is kissed by the sun. It is rippled by
the wind. The minnows play in the pools. The
soft weeds grow in the shallows. The grass and
the dandelions lie on its sunny banks. The moss

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 27

and the fern are sheltered in the nooks. It comes
from one knows not whence : it flows to one
knows not whither. It awakens the desire to
explore. It is fraught with mysteries. It typifies
the flood of life. It " goes on forever."

In other words, the reason why the brook is
such a perfect nature-study subject is the fact that
it is the central theme in a scene of life. Living
things appeal to children. To relate the nature-
study work to living animals and plants is the
fundamental idea in Hodge's ideal, as expressed,
for example, in his book, ** Nature-Study and
Life.'' He holds that the appreciation of inani-
mate things is a later development in the child-life
than an appreciation of objects that are living. He
would, therefore, not begin with weathering of
rock and formation of soil, combustion and the
like, although he would " not wish to insinuate that
the study of living things is all of nature-study."
With this I agree for the very young, and I would
study a brook or a fence-corner or a garden-bed
or a bird or a plant. However, the teacher and
the way of teaching are more important than the
subject matter, and there are good nature-study
teachers who are better fitted to teach inanimate
than animate subjects.

One of the first things that a child should learn
when he comes to the study of natural history is
the fact that no tw^o objects are alike. This leads
to an apprehension of the correlated fact that
every animal and plant contends for an opportunity
to live, and this is the central fact in the study of

28 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

living things. The world has a new meaning
when this fact is understood. This is the key-
that unlocks many mysteries, and it is the means
of establishing a bond of sympathy between our-
selves and the world in which we live.

It is a common mistake to attempt to teach too
much at every exercise ; and the teacher is also
appalled at the amount of information which he
must have. Suppose that one teaches two hun-
dred and fifty days in the year. Start out with
the determination to drop into the pupils' minds
two hundred and fifty suggestions about nature.
One suggestion is sufficient for a day. Let them
think about it and ponder over it. We stuff our
children so full of facts that they cannot digest
them. I should prefer ten minutes a day of
nature-study to two hours ; but I should want it
quick and sharp. I should want it designed to
develop the observing and reasoning powers of the
child and not to give mere information. It
should be vivid and spontaneous. Spirit counts
for more than knowledge.

Taught in this way, nature-study work is not an
additional burden to the teacher, but a relief and
a relaxation. It may come at the opening of the
school hour, or at the close of a hard period, or
at any other time when an opportunity offers. It
can often be combined with the regular studies of
the school, and in that way it can be introduced
in places where it would otherwise meet with
objection. For example, the subject-matter of the
lesson may be used for the exercise in drawing or

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 29

in geography. Let the child draw the twigs ;
but always be careful lest the drawing become
more important than the twigs.

What may be the results of nature-study ?

Its legitimate result is education — the develop-
ing of mental power, the opening of the eyes
and the mind, the civilizing of the individual.
As with all education, its central purpose is to
make the individual happy ; for happiness is noth-
ing more nor less than pleasant and efficient
thinking. It is often said that the ignorant man
may be as happy as the educated man. Relatively,
this is true ; absolutely, it is not. A ten-foot
well is not so deep as a twenty-foot well ; and
although the ten-foot well may be full to the brim,
it holds only half as much water as the other.

The happiness of the ignorant man is largely
the thoughts born of physical pleasures; that of
the educated man is the thoughts born of
intellectual pleasures. One may find comradeship
in a groggery, the other may find it in a dandelion ;
and inasmuch as there are more dandelions than
groggeries (in most communities), the educated
man has the greater chance of happiness.

Some persons object to nature-study because it
is not systematic and graded. They think that it
leads to disjunctive and discursive work. My
first answer is that the discursiveness may be its
charm. Thereby comes the contrast with the
perfunctory school work ; and thereby, also, arises
its naturalness. Again, I answer that nature-study

30 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

exercises are not to be the dominant work in
the school. They are, or should be, only inci-
dental. The formal school work will supply the
drill in method and system ; nature-study will
afford relaxation, and it will be valuable because
it is short and forceful. But, as a matter of fact,
nature-study will nearly always be consecutive in
subject-matter because the teacher will feel himself
most competent in one or two lines and will
devote himself chiefly to them; or the consecu-
tiveness may be that of the seasons, following
the wild life of the neighborhood. The gist of
it all is that the mere exercises in nature-study are
only a means to an end : it is the nature-study
spirit, not that exercise nor this, that is to correct
and to enliven educational ideals. The given
exercise may be secondary to other subjects of the
school day, but the point of view — the way of
thinking — that it inculcates is fundamental and
will pervade the school or the home.

My remarks on methods are meant, of course, to
apply to children. As the pupil advances, the work
will naturally become more systematic, until, in the .
high school, it may develop into science-teaching.
Those who complain that nature-study is desultory
are really thinking of science, not of nature-study.
Although not the teaching of science, as such,
nature-study is not unscientific.

Nature-study not only educates, but it educates
nature- ward; and nature is ever our companion,
whether we will or no. Even though we are
determined to shut ourselves in an office, nature

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY ::i

J

sends her messengers. The light, the dark, the
moon, the cloud, the rain, the wind, the falling
leaf, the fly, the bouquet, the bird, the cockroach
— they are all ours.

If one is to be happy, he must be in sympathy
with common things. He must live in harmony
with his environment. One cannot be happy
yonder nor to-morrow : he is happy here and
now, or never. Our stock of knowledge of
common things should be great. Few of us can
travel. We must know the things at home.

Nature-love tends toward naturalness, and
toward simplicity of living. It tends country-
ward. One word from the fields is worth two
from the city. ** God made the country.'*

I expect, therefore, that much good will come
from nature-study. It ought to revolutionize the
school life, for it is capable of putting new force
and enthusiasm into the school and the child. It
is new, and therefore is called a fad. A movement
is a fad until it succeeds. We shall learn much,
and shall outgrow some of our present notions,
but nature-study has come to stay. It is in much
the same stage of development that manual-training
and kindergarten-work were twenty-five years ago.
We must take care that it does not crystallize
into science-teaching on the one hand, nor fall
into mere sentimentalism on the other.

I would again emphasize the importance of
obtaining our fact before we let loose the imagi-
nation, for on this point will largely turn the
results — -the failure or the success of the movement.

32 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

We must not allow our fancy to run away with
us. If we hitch our wagon to a star, we must
ride with mind and soul and body all alert. When
we ride in such a wagon, we must not forget to
put in the tail-board.

Another most important result of the nature-
study movement will be its effect, along with
manual-training and other forces, in gradually
overturning present systems of schoolwork. The
system of memorizing from books will eventually
have to go. The pupil will first be put into
sympathetic contact with objects, not put into
books. In many ways we are now in a transition
period in our school systems. For one thing, we
are living in an era of the material equipment of
schools — the erecting of magnificent buildings,
the gathering of extensive outfits. This is true
of colleges and universities as well as of the
common schools. When this era is past, we shall
have more money to spend for teachers. Teaching
will be a profession requiring better training and
commanding more pay, and men teachers will
come back to it.

In this evolved and emancipated school, the
nature-study spirit will prevail, even though the
name itself be lost. This spirit stands for
naturalness and the natural method, for freedom,
spontaneity, individual initiative, because it deals
first-hand with actual things. It stands for doing
and accomplishing. It is the active and creative
method. It is a developing of the powers of the
pupil, not hearing him recite. In spirit and

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 33

method it is opposed to the pouring-in-and-
dipping-out process.

My own work in nature-study centers chiefly
about its value as a means of improving country
living. It may tend distinctly toward the
improvement of the farmer, and thereby of
farming. Go into a potato-growing community
and ask the farmers where the roots of the potato
plants are — whether above or below the tubers —
and you will puzzle them nearly every time. And
yet, a knowledge of the position of the roots is
essential to the best potato-growing, for upon this
position depend in part the principles governing
the depth of planting, hilling, and, to some
extent, of tilling. At a farmers' meeting in an
apple-growing section, I asked how many apple
flowers are borne in a cluster. Every man guessed,
but no man knew. One man said that the limbs
of some of his apple trees had died ; he asked me
why. I asked him the symptoms : but he did
not know as they had any symptoms — they had
only died. Had he looked at the limbs ? Yes,
he had seen them from the barnyard !

Now, I do not care whether nature-study
teaches where the potato roots are or not. The
point is, that nature-study teaches the importance
of actually seeing the thing and then of trying to
understand it. The person who actually knows a
pussy-willow will know how to become acquainted
with the potato-bug. He will introduce himself.

In recent years there has been great activity in
disseminating information amongst the farmers.

34 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

The results have been gratifying. Not only have
farmers learned more, but there has been a general
uplift in the tone of many rural communities.
But the discouraging fact is, that the young people
do not often come to the farmers' meetings in
any numbers. There will be a constantly recurring
crop of ignorance and prejudice. Each crop, to
be sure, must be above its predecessor, but yet not
living up to the full stature of its opportunities.
It is therefore necessary to begin with the new
generation — to begin our chimney at the bottom,
rather than at the top. People crowd into the
cities largely because of the intellectual entertain-
ment that they find there. If their own
intellectual horizon is enlarged, they may find
entertainment in the country.

The teacher, the clergyman, the progressive
merchant or farmer here and there, are the persons
that are willing to help along the work of uplifting
the rural communities. Education is the only
salvation for the farmer — not the development of
facts merely, but the development of power
through the enlargement of capability. The
results will come slowly. We must not be
impatient. There are centuries of inertia to be
overcome. The best and most permanent things
are of slow growth.

Nature-study teaching may seem to be an in-
direct way of reaching the farmer ; but it is not.
It is direct because it strikes at the very root of
the difficulty. One of the pleasantest comments
which we have had on our nature-study work

MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 35

came from a country teacher who said that because
she had used it her pupils were no longer ashamed
of being farmers' children. If only that much
can be accomplished for each country child, the
result will be enough for one generation. What
can be done for the country child can be done, in
a different sphere, for the city child. Fifty years
hence the harvest will be seen.

The nature-study effort sets our thinking in the
direction of our daily doing. It relates the school-
room to the life that the child is to lead. It
makes the common and familiar affairs seem to
be worth the while. Essentially, it is not an
ideal for the school any more than it is for the
home ; but so completely do we delegate all work
of teaching and instructing to the school, that
nature-study effort comes to be, in practice, a
school-room subject. I wish that every parent,
as well as every professional teacher, could see
the importance of first instructing the child in
the very things that it is doing and the very objects
that it is seeing. The ideal of the parent or the
teacher should be to bring the child into sympa-
thetic relations with its world ; but whatever may
be in the mind and hope of the teacher, so far as
the child is concerned the nature-sympathy must
come as a natural effect of actual observation of
definite objects and phenomena.

If, in conclusion, I were asked for a condensed
statement of the nature-study idea, I should choose
the following definition of it by Professor Thomas
H. Macbride, of the University of Iowa: **I

36 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

should say that by nature-study a good teacher
means such study of the natural world as leads to
sympathy with it. The keynote, in my opinion,
for all nature-study is sympathy. Such study in
the schools is not botany ; it is not zoology ;
although, of course, not contravening either. But
by nature-study we mean such a presentation, to
young people, of the outside world that our
children learn to love all nature's forms and cease
to abuse them. The study of natural science
leads, to be sure, to these results, but its methods
are long and have a different primary object."

IV

THE INTEGUMENT-MAN

I WROTE a nature-Study leaflet on " How a
Squash Plant Gets Out of the Seed/' A botanist
wrote me that it were a pity to place such an
error of statement before the child : it should
have read, " How the Squash Plant Gets Out of
the Integument/'

Of course my friend was correct : the squash
plant gets out of an integument. But I was
anxious to teach the essence of the squash plant's
behavior, not a mere verbal fact — and what child
was ever interested in an integument ?

It is the old question over again — the question
of the point of view and what one is driving at.
The method of presentation must first be adapted
to the person to be instructed, else the instruction
will be of little consequence. A person may be
so intent on mere literal accuracy that he
overlooks the matters that are really important and
even vital.

It is the fear of the Integument-Man that keeps
many a good teacher from teaching nature-study.
He is afraid that he will make a mistake in
statements of mere fact. Now, the person who
is afraid of making a mistake is the very person
to trust, because he will be careful. Of course
he will make mistakes — every one does who really

(37)

38 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

accomplishes anything; but the mistakes will be
relatively few: he will at once admit the mistakes
and correct them when they are discovered, and
the pupils will catch his desire for accuracy and
admire the sincerity of his purpose. Pity the
man who has never made an error !

The teacher often hesitates to teach nature-study
because of lack of technical knowledge of the
subject. This is well ; but technical knowledge
of the subject does not make a good teacher.
Expert specialists are so likely to go into mere
details and to pursue particular subjects so far,
when teaching beginners, as to miss the leading
and emphatic points. They are so cognizant of
exceptions to every rule that they qualify their
statements until the statements have no spirit and
no force. There are other ideals than those of
mere accuracy. In other words, it is more
important that the teacher be a good teacher
than a good scientist. One may be so exact that
his words mean nothing. But being a good
scientist ought not to spoil a good teacher.

The Integument-Man sees the little things.
The child sees the big things. Ask a child to
describe a house, or to draw one.

The Integument-Man teaches details, and his
teaching is " dry." The child wants things in the
large ; when it gets into the high school or college
it may carry analysis and dissection to the limit.

The Integument-Man teaches science, although
it is not necessarily the best science. The child
wants nature.

THE INTEGUMENT-MAN 39

The Integument-Man believes that any work,
to be of value, must be accurate ; and accuracy in
nature-study begets accuracy in science, when the
pupil takes it up later on. So do I. But the
child can be accurate only so far as it can
understand and comprehend : it must work in its
own sphere ; integuments are not in the child's
sphere.

The Integument-Man is fearful of every word
that seems to imply motive or direction in plants
and the lower animals. " The roots go here and
there in search of food '' is wrong because roots
do not *' go.'* Seeds do not ** travel.'' Plants
do not "prepare" for winter. I wonder, then,
whether water "runs" or winds "blow." This
mere verbal accuracy forgets that words are only
metaphors and parables, their significance deter-
mined by custom, and that the essential truth is
what we should search for — expressing it, when
found, in language that is alive, unmistakable,
and conformed to best usage.

The Integument-Man insists on "methods."
The other day a young man wanted me to
recommend him as a teacher of one of the
sciences in a public school. He explained that
he had had a complete course in this and in that;
he could teach the whole subject as laid down in
the books ; he knew the methods. It was evident
that he was well drilled. He had acquired a
fund of well-digested but unrelated facts. These
facts were carefully assorted and ticketed, and
tucked away in his mental cupboard as em-

40 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

broidered napkins are laid away in a drawer.
Poor fellow! Mere details have little educative
value. An imperfect method that is adapted to
one's use is better than a perfect one that cannot
be used. Some school laboratories are so perfect
that they discourage the pupil in taking up in-
vestigations when thrown on his own resources.
Imperfect equipment often encourages ingenuity
and originality. A good teacher is better than
all the laboratories and apparatus.

I like the man who has had an incomplete
course. A partial view, if truthful, is worth more
than a complete course, if lifeless. If the man
has acquired a power for work, a capability for
initiative and investigation, an enthusiasm for the
daily life, his incompleteness is his strength.
How much there is before him ! How eager his
eye ! How enthusiastic his temper ! He is a
man with a point of view, not a man with mere
facts. This man will see first the large and signi-
ficant events; he will grasp relationships; he will
correlate; later, he will consider the details. He
will study the plant before he studies the leaf or
germination or the cell. He will discover the
bobolink before he looks for its toes. He will
care little for mere " methods."

The Integument-Man is afraid that this popular
nature-study will undermine and discourage the
teaching of science. Needless to say, the fear is
absurdly groundless. Science-teaching is a part
of the very fabric of our civilization. All our
goings and our comings are adjusted to it. No

THE INTEGUMENT-MAN 41

sane man wishes to cheapen or discourage the
teaching of science. Nature-study is not opposed
to it. Nature-study prepares the child to receive
the science-teaching. Gradually, as the child
matures, nature-study may grow into science-
learning if the child so elect. Science-teaching
has more to fear from desiccated science-teaching
than it has from nature-study. Everything that
is true and worth the while will endure.

All youths love nature. None of them,
primarily, loves science. They are interested in
the things that they see. By and by they begin
to arrange their knowledge and impressions of
these things, and thereby to pursue a science.
The idea of the science should come late in the
educational development of the youth, for the
simple reason that science is only a human way
of looking at a subject. There is no natural
science, but there has arisen a science of natural
things. At first the interest in nature is an affair
of the heart, and this attitude should never K
stifled, much less eliminated. When the interest
passes from the heart to the head nature-love has
given way to science. Fortunately, it can always
remain an aflfair of the heart with a most perfect
engraftment of the head, but the teaching of
facts alone tends to divorce the two. When we
begin the teaching of the youth by the teaching
of a science we are inverting the natural order.
A rigidly graded and systematic body of facts
kills nature-study ; examinations bury it.

Then teach! If you love nature and have

42 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

living and accurate knowledge of some small
part of it, teach! Your reputation is not to be
made as a geologist or zoologist or botanist, but
as a teacher. When beginning to teach birds,
think more of the pupil than of ornithology.
The pupil's mind and sympathies are to be
expanded: the science of ornithology is not to
be extended. Remember that spirit is more
important than information. The teacher who
thinks first of his subject teaches science; he
who thinks first of his pupil teaches nature-study.
With your whole heart, teach !

Do not be afraid of the Integument-Man.

NATURE-STUDY WITH PLANTS

Any one who has listened to discussions in the
'recent meetings of teachers and scientists must
have been impressed with the great prominence
which is given to nature-study. The nature-study
movement is now, perhaps, the most conspicuous
new feature in educational ideals in the sec-
ondary and primary schools. All the so-called
natural sciences are contributing to the movement.
The methods in plant-study, however, show a
distinct development in pedagogical ideas which
it may be well to recapitulate. One can make
out four fairly well marked epochal ideals in the
teaching of plant subjects.

First, was the eiffbrt to know the names of
plants and to classify the kinds. This was a direct
reflection of the systematic or classificatory studies
of the botanists. The external world had been
unknown as to its details, and botanists necessarily
attempted inventories of the plant kingdom.
Plants must be collected and named. From this
impulse arose the herbarium collecting, a method
of teaching which was so thoroughly impressed
into school methods a generation or two ago that
it is still a troublesome factor in many places.

The second stage in plant-study in the American

(43)

44 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

schools was the desire to know the names of the
parts of plants. It came with the excellent text-
books of Asa Gray and others, in which the
results of studies in morphology and physiology
and histology were codified and defined. These
books were nearly as rigid in their systems and
methods as text-books of physics ; and the pupil
recited mostly from the book, with perhaps some
accessory observation on plants.

The third epoch is that of training for inde-
pendent investigation. In very recent times, and
chiefly since the death of Gray nearly two decades
ago, the German laboratory methods have been
widely copied in America by the many young and
brilliant botanists who have studied abroad. As a
result there are many high schools which are
equipped with microscopes and apparatus that
would have done credit to a college or university
twenty-five years ago. The laboratory method is
a distinct advance on the preceding methods of
teaching in the fact that the pupil actually studies
plants ; but its motive and point of view are
distinctly wrong for the elementary school from
the fact that it attempts primarily to teach botany
rather than to educate the pupil. The field of
view is also very narrow, and the pupiFs mind is
likely to be closed to nature and restricted in its
range. The stage of the microscope and the tables
of the laboratory are poor and narrow ranges for
the young mind when there are fields and gardens
adjacent. The German laboratory method is no
doubt ideal for the teaching of botany to investi-

NATURE-STUDY WITH PLANTS 45

gators and specialists, but it lacks the inspiration
and the educative im*^ulse which young minds
need.

The fourth epoch is marked by the effort to
know the plant as a complete organism living its
own life in a natural way. It is marked by a
new and vital plant physiology. In the beginning
of this epoch we are now living.

The pupil should come to the study of plants
and animals with little more than his natural and
native powers. Study with the compound micro-
scope is a specialization to be made when the
pupil has had experience and when his judgment
and sense of relationships are trained.

A difficulty in the teaching of plants is to deter-
mine what are the most profitable topics for
consideration. The trouble with much of the
teaching is that it attempts to go too far and the
subjects have no vital connection with the pupil's
life. Good botanical teaching for the young is
replete with human interest. It is connected-with
the common associations.

Plants always should be taught by the '' labora-
tory method'': that is, the pupil should work out
the subjects directly from the specimens themselves ;
but I should want it undefstood that the best
"laboratory" may be the field.

Specimens mean more to the pupil when he
collects them. No matter how commonplace the
subject, a specimen will vivify it and fix it in the
pupil's mind. A living, growing plant is worth a
score of herbarium specimens.

46 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

In the secondary schools botany should be taught
for the purpose of bringing the pupil closer to the
world with which he lives, of widening his
horizon, of intensifying his hold on life. It should
begin with familiar plant forms and phenomena.
It should be related to the experiences of the
daily life. It should not be taught for the purpose
of making the pupil a specialist : that effort should
be retained for the few who develop a taste for
special knowledge. It is often said that the high
school pupil should begin the study of botany
with the lowest and simplest forms of life. This
is wrong. The microscope is not an introduction
to nature. It is said that the physiology of plants
can be best understood by beginning with the
lower forms. This may be true: but the cus-
tomary technical plant physiology is not a subject
for the beginner. Other subjects are more impor-
tant. The youth is by nature a generalist. He
should not be forced to be a specialist.

Just what kind of plant or animal subjects
should be taught must depend ( i ) on the desires
and capabilities of the teacher; (2) on the place
in which the school is — whether city or country.
North or South, prairie or mountain — for it is
important that the subject be common and have
relation to the lives of the pupils; (3) on the
desires of the pupils, particularly if they are to do
the collecting ; (4) on the time of the year.

Whenever possible, let the pupil first come into
cognizance of the plant as a whole. It is well to
choose one species of plant that is common and

NATURE-STUDY WITH PLANTS 47

familiar, then endeavor to determine where it
grows, why it grows there, how it is modified in
different circumstances. If it is a dandelion, one
lesson may be devoted to dandelions in the school-
yard ; another to dandelions in the meadow ;
another to dandelions along hard and dry roadsides ;
another to dandelions in rich farmyards and
gardens ; another to dandelions in the borders of
woodlands. Compare the relative abundance of
dandelions in these different places : why ? Do
the plants "look'' the same in these different
places : how differ and why ? (Note the size and
form of plants, relative number of leaves, form
and size of leaves, root habit, abundance of bloom,
length of flower stems.)

Having known one kind of common plant, the
pupil may well study plant societies — how plants
live together, and why. Every distinct or separate
area has its own plant society. There is one
association for the hard-tramped dooryard — knot-
weed and broad-leaved plantain with interspersed
grass and dandelions ; one for the fence-row —
briers and choke-cherries and hiding weeds ; one
for the dry open field — wire-grass and mullein and
scattered docks; one for the slattern roadside —
sweet clover and ragweed and burdock ; one for
the meadow swale — smartweed and pitchforks ;
one for the barnyard— rank pigweeds and sprawling
barn-grass ; one for the dripping rock-cliff— delicate
bluebells and hanging ferns and grasses. Indefi-
nitely might these categories be extended. We all
know the plant societies, but we have not thought

48 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

of them. In every plant society there is one
dominant note. It is the individuality of one
kind of plant which grov^^s most abundantly or
overtops the others. Certain plant-forms come
to mind when one thinks of willows, others when
he thinks of an apple orchard, still others when he
thinks of a beech forest. The farmer may associate
" pussly " with cabbages and beets, but not with
wheat and oats. He associates cockle with wheat,
but not with oats or corn. We all associate
dandelions with grassy areas, but not with burdocks
or forests. It is impossible to open one's eyes out-
of-doors outside the paved streets of cities without
seeing a plant society. A lawn is a plant society.
It may contain only grass, or it may contain weeds
hidden away in the sward. What weeds remain
in the lawn? Only those which can withstand
the mowing. What are they ? Let a bit of lawn
grow as it will for a month and see what there is
in it. A swale, a dry hillside, a forest of beech, a
forest of oak, a forest of hemlock or pine, a
weedy yard, a tangled fence-row, a brook-side,
a deep quiet swamp, a lake shore, a railroad, a
river bank, a meadow, a pasture, a dusty roadway —
each has its characteristic plants. Even in the
winter one may find these societies — the tall plants
still asserting themselves, others of less aspiring
stature, and others snuggling just under the snow.
Later, special attributes or forms of plants may
be considered — forms of stems, bark, ways of
branching, root forms, leaf forms, position and
size of leaves with reference to light, flower forms.

NATURE-STUDY WITH PLANTS 49

falling of the leaves, germination, seed dispersal,
pollination (for older pupils), injuries of various
kinds (as by snow, ice, wind, sun-scalding, drought,
insects, fungi, browsing by cattle) , simple physio-
logical experiments. In winter, studies may be
made of the forms of trees and bushes and
of persisting weeds, leaf-buds and fruit-buds, bark
forms, preparation for spring, tubers and bulbs,
seed-sowing and germination, struggle for existence
in the tree-top, evergreens and how they shed
their leaves, how the different kinds of trees hold
the snow, where the herbs and tender things are,
cones and seed pods, apples and turnips and other
things from the cellar, knots and knot-holes, how
vines hold to their supports, and others. These
subjects are intended only as the merest suggestions
of the kind of work that may be taken up with
profit. As far as possible, the study of form and
function should go together. Correlate what a
part b with what it does. What is this part ?
What is its office, or how did it come to be ? It
were a pity to teach phyllotaxy without teaching
light-rdation : it were an equal pity to teach
light-relation without teaching phyllotaxy.

The/e are those who discourage the teaching
of plant societies until the pupil is well grounded
in *' physiology " ; but this, again, is the science-
teaching point of view— and it may be the correct
point of view for college work. Of course the
child cannot understand the fundamental reasons
for plant association — I wonder whether the
botanist does ?— but the child can comprehend the

50 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

phenomena, and he will be interested in them
because they are so intimately associated with

his life.

There are those, again, who say that such
subjects as those suggested above do not prepare
the pupil to enter college. My reply is that the
elementary schools do not exist for the sake of
the college or the university. Those that are to
enter college are a small and special class, and
they may receive special instruction.

VI

THE GROWING OF PLANTS BY CHILDREN— THE

SCHOOL-GARDEN

Actually to grow a plant is to come into
intimate contact with a specific bit of nature.
The numbers of plants that we grow, and also
the kinds of them, increase with every generation.
The intensity of our plant-growing, as well as the
increasing care for animals, is coming to be a
measure of our interest in the world about us.

Not only has the cultivation of plants itself
increased our contact with plants and with nature,
but, in connection with the growth of the spirit
of art, of sport and of suburbanism, it has taken
us afield and has impelled us to know things as
they are and as they grow. All this great interest
in nature is reacting profoundly on the natural
sciences in making them more vital and increasing
their application to the daily life. With all its
progressiveness, science is yet conservative.
The modern popularization of plant-knowledge is
probably due quite as much to these agencies as
to the progress of botany itself.

There are many practical applications to the
lives of children and to the home that can be
made from a knowledge of plants and horticulture.
This knowledge means more than a mere know-

(51)

52 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

ledge of plants themselves. It takes one into the
open air. It enlarges his horizon. It brings him
into contact with living things. It increases his
hold on life. All these facts were well understood
by Froebel, Pestalozzi and other educational
reformers. It is important that one does not
assume too much when beginning plant-work
with children. We forget that things which fail
to appeal to us, because of our busy lives and
great experience, may nevertheless mean very
much to the child. Often we attempt to teach
the child so much that it is confused and nothing
makes an impression. An interest in one simple,
living problem that is near to the child's life is
worth a whole book of facts without nature.

It is not primarily important that children know
the names, although the name is an introduction
to a plant as it is to a person. The essential thing
is that there should be plants about the home, or
in the school grounds, or in the schoolhouse
windows. Even though the children are not
conscious that they are receiving any impression
from these plants, nevertheless the very presence
of them has an influence which will be felt in
later life, even as the presence of good literature
and furniture and the association of refined
surroundings have influence on the life of the
individual.

I dropped a seed into the earth. It grew,

and the plant was mine.

It was a wonderful thing, this plant of

mine. I did not know its name, and the

THE SCHOOL-GARDEN 53

plant did not bloom. All I know is that I
planted something apparently as lifeless as
a grain of sand and there came forth a
green and living thing unlike the seed, unlike
the soil in which it stood, unlike the air
into which it grew. No one could tell me
why it grew, nor how. It had secrets all
its own, secrets that baffle the wisest men ;
yet this plant was my friend. It faded
when I withheld the light, it wilted when I
neglected to give it water, it flourished when I
supplied its simple needs. One week I went
away on a vacation, and when I returned the
plant was dead ; and I missed it.

Although my little plant had died so soon,
it had taught me a lesson ; and the lesson is
that it is worth while to have a plant.
Have some little means of growing plants, not
only to teach how to grow plants themselves,
but to teach the child the care of things, to show
that other beings besides itself have vicissitudes and
lives of their own, and to implant the germ of
altruism — the interest in something outside of
oneself. These means of growing plants should
be simple. A pot, a box or a hotbed may be
sufficient. Every child should have the handling
of at least one plant during the period of child-
hood. One plant cannot be handled without
leaving an impress on the life.

The love of plants must be inculcated in the
school. In nearly every school it is possible to
have a few plants in the window. They may not

54 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

thrive, but it is worth while to set the children to
inquiring why they do not. Sometimes the
poorest plants awaken the most effort and inquiry.
If nothing else will thrive, a beet will. Secure a
good fresh beet from the cellar. Plant it in a box
or tin can. Surprisingly quick it will throw out
clean bright leaves. The thick root will hold
moisture from Friday to Monday.

A desire for school-gardens is gradually taking
shape. This movement must grow and ripen; it
cannot be perfected in a day. We must be patient
and persistent. For a century there have been few
school-gardens : we must not expect to overcome
the custom in a day. The movement has not
been aided much, if at all, by those who have
"complete'' schemes for gardens for the district
schools. Such schemes may be talked about later.
For the present, start the work by suggesting that
the school-grounds be cleaned or " slicked up.''
Take one step at a time. The propaganda for
school-gardens must have relation to the economic
and social conditions under which the school
exists. There is some confusion as to the objects
of school-ground improvement. The purposes
may be analyzed as follows :

(i) Ornamenting the grounds, comprising
{a) cleaning and tidying them, {b) securing
a lawn, {c) planting. This is always the
first thing to be done. It stands for ideals of
thrift, cleanliness, comfort, beauty, progres-
siveness.

THE SCHOOL-GARDEN S5

(2) Establishing a collection to supply
material for nature-study and class work.

(3) Making a garden for the purpose of
(a) supplying material (as in No. 2,) (i)
affording manual training, object lessons and
instruction in plant-growing, {c) teaching
agriculture and horticulture.

These categories are referable to two main
ideas in school-gardening : ( i ) The improvement
or adornment of the grounds; (2) the making of
distinct gardens for purposes of direct instruction,
or school-gardening proper. Much of the current
discussion does not distinguish these two ideals,
and thereby arises some of the loss of effort and
effectiveness in the movement.

The first category — the improvement of the
premises — is of universal application. Every
school-ground can be picked up, slicked up and
made fit for children to see. There are three
stages or epochs in the improvement of any
ground : Cleaning up ; grading and seeding ;
planting.

To improve the school-grounds should be a
matter of neighborhood pride. It is an expression
of the people's interest in the things that are the
people's. We are ashamed when our homes are
not fit and attractive for children to live in. But
who cares if at the school the fence is tumble-
down, the wood or coal scattered over the yard,
the clapboards loose, the chimneys awry, the trees
broken, the outhouses sagged and yawning ?

56 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

The first thing to do is to arouse the public
conscience. Begin with the children. As soon
as they are directed to see the conditions they will
believe what they see. They are not prejudiced.
They will talk about it : teacher, mother, father
will hear.

The next thing to do is to " clean up." Do not
begin with any ideal plan of landscape-gardening
improvement to be carried out at once — not unless
some one person is willing to do all the work and
bear all the expense out of his public spirit ; and
even this would be unfortunate, because most
of the value in improving a ground is to interest
the children in the work. Get the children
enthusiastic — it is easy to do — in removing stones
and litter and rubbish, in filling the holes, piling
the wood, raking the grounds. If one school
year were required to accomplish this work alone
it would be time well used. Children and teachers
have many interests. We are likely to expect too
much of them.

The cleaning up once done, and the civic pride
once aroused to the pitch of keeping it done, the
next thing to do is to make a base or foundation
upon which all the gardening or planting features
are to stand : the land must be graded. In some
cases the soil must be removed and new soil put
in its place, for the soil about a schoolhouse is
very likely to be poor sand or clay, or a mixture
with building material and other rubbish; but in
general this labor will not be necessary if only a
lawn and ornamental planting are desired. In

THE SCHOOL-GARDEN 57

some instances a lawn is impracticable, but a good
and even earth surface should always be secured.
The early spring is the season in which to do all
this shaping and seeding of the land. The spring
fever is on and enthusiasm is new-born. If the
school is in the country, the farmers can be
interested to do the heavy work. If the subject
has been well discussed in the school for some
weeks or months, it should not be difficult to
organize the farmers into a "bee'' to grade, till
and seed the ground. There is always at least one
energetic man in the community who is ready to
take the lead in such movements as this. Much
of the value of improving the school-ground lies
in the arousing of public interest in public questions.
The next year, plant. Let the matter be
discussed in school. Ask the children to make
plans. When the time is ready, choose the
simplest plan that seems to fulfil the requirements.
Remember that during a large part of the year
the school-ground will be practically without care.
The planting must be able to maintain itself, if
necessary. Leave the centers open. Throw the
planting mostly to the borders or margins. Avoid
all elaborate designs in bedding. Be careful not
to have scattered effects in planting. Have the
planting as little and as simple as possible and yet
accomplish the desired results. Leave ample space
for playgrounds. Cover the out-buildings with
vines, and screen them with bushes and trees.
Use chiefly of hardy and well-known trees and
shrubs and herbs. Aim to have the ground

58 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

interesting because it appeals to the onlooker as a
picture as a whole and not as a collection of
plants.

The real school-garden is a different idea from
all this. The school-garden is for purposes of
direct instruction. It is an outdoor laboratory.
It is a part of the school equipment, as books,
blackboards, charts and apparatus are. The real
school-garden is not adapted to all schools ; or, to
speak more correctly, not all schools are yet adapted
to the school-garden, any more than they are all
adapted to an equipment in physics or chemistry.
All grounds can be improved and embellished ; we
shall be glad when all schools will also have a
school-garden. The improvement of the grounds
is the first consideration : that is primarily a
question of civic pride. The making of a definite
garden is an epoch in the life of each school : it
marks the progress of the school in pedagogical
ideals.

The school-garden should have a special area set
aside for it, as any other garden or laboratory has.
Its prime motive is not to be ornamental, but to be
useful. The ground should be " good, '' well
prepared, well tilled. The garden should be a
good garden, if it is to do its best work.

Just now there is much interest in school-
gardening in the United States. This interest is
the beginning of a new movement which will take
the pupil out-of-doors and to nature, and will
relate his school life to his real life. The primary
effort should be to arouse the public conscience

THE SCHOOL-GARDEN 59

to the importance of caring for the school premises
and to the necessity of bringing the child into
sympathy with its environment. Then, here and
there, the school-garden, for purposes of definite
instruction, will be instituted. In the country
districts the school-garden will come slowly, because
gardens are so common as to lose their interest, and
because the rural schools are often small and weak.
Higher ideals of agriculture at home, nature-study
in the school, consolidation of weak districts — these
are the means that will bring the real school-garden
to the rural school.

But there is a broader significance to the growing
of plants than that associated with mere gardening
or with the furnishing of schoolroom material
alone. There are national aspects. Children in
the home and school should be interested in horti-
culture and agriculture as a means of introduction
to nature. Farming introduces the human element
into nature and thereby makes it more vivid in
the child's mind. More than half the people of
the United States live outside the cities. More
people are engaged in farming than in any other
single occupation. The children in the schools
are taught much about the cities, but little about
the farming country. The child should be taught
something from the farmer's point of view. This
will broaden the child's horizon and quicken his
sympathies. Every person is now supposed to
know something of the country. He will spend
part of his vacations therein. The more knowl-
edge he has of farming methods the more these

6o THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

vacations will mean. It is not necessary, and
perhaps not even important, that the child be
taught these things with the idea of making him
a farmer, but merely as a means of education and
of interest to him in the out-of-doors. The day is
coming when agriculture — under other names,
perhaps, and not as a professional subject — will be
taught in public schools as a ** culture study."

There must be a greater interest in parks and
public gardens. These institutions have now
come to be a part of our civic life. They no
longer need apology. We build parks in the
same spirit that we build good streets and make
sanitary improvements; but the park should be
more than a mere display of gardening. It
should have an intimate relation with the lives
of the people. The greater the number of
parks the better for the children. All parks
should be open to nature-study teachers, at least
on certain days. There should also be children's
days in the parks. In some places the park can
grow specimens for the school. In large cities
it might be a good plan to have some of the
common vegetables and farm crops growing in
small areas at one side of the park. The ten-
dency, perhaps, is to make our parks too exotic,
and to give relatively too much attention to mere
roads> statuary and architecture. The perfect
garden, from the gardener's point of view, may
not be the most useful one. The garden should
be so common and so easy to make as to become
a part of the child-life.

THE SCHOOL-GARDEN 6i

Some of the specific ways in which our out-
look has been extended by the growth of horti-
culture— which is the growing of plants — may
be mentioned:

It has opened our eyes to all the multitude
of flowers and ornamental plants.

It has increased our national wealth and
has opened the way for large commercial
industries.

It has elevated the public taste so that
parks and well-kept lawns are now a civic
necessity.

It has had much to do with the breadth
and spirit of the modern movement that
we call nature-study.

It has made plants a part of the home, as
books and pictures are. Plant collections
stand for culture. Not only do they appeal
to the individual who has them, but also to
a wide circle of persons, since they are
living, growing things and cannot well be
hidden.

It has awakened an intrinsic interest in
natural objects. People have come to love
plants. They like the plant itself as well as
its flowers. They know that a plant is
worth growing merely because it is a plant.
They have come to feel that every animal
and plant lives its own life. It has its battles
to fight. It contends. Thereby is the indi-
vidual man carried beyond himself.

VII

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE OF NATURE-STUDY

The nature-study idea is fundamental to the
evolution of popular education. Therefore it
may be applied — in fact, must be applied — to all
branches of education. It is bound to have a
tremendous influence in carrying a vital edu-
cational impulse to farmers. The accustomed
methods of education are less applicable to
farmers than to any other people, and yet the
farmers are nearly half our population. The
greatest of the unsolved problems of education
is how to reach the farmer. He must be reached
on his own ground. The methods and the results
must suit his needs. The ultimate test of good
extension work will be its ability to reach into
the remotest districts.

We have failed to reach the farmer effectively
because we still persist in employing old-time and
academic methods. Historically, the elementary
public school is a product of the university and
college. "The greatest achievement of modern
education," writes W. H. Payne, "is the grada-
tion and correlation of schools, whereby the
ladder of learning is let down from the university
to secondary schools, and from these to the schools
of the people." This origin of " the schools of

(62)

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 63

the people" from the university explains why it
is that these schools are so unrelated to the life of
the pupil, and so unreal ; they are exotic and
unnatural. If any man were to find himself in a
county wholly devoid of schools and were to be
set the task of originating and organizing a school
system, he would almost unconsciously introduce
some subjects that would be related to the habits
of the people and to the welfare of the commu-
nity. Being freed from traditions, he would teach
something of the plants and animals and fields and
people. Yet, as a matter of fact, what do our
rural schools teach?

So long have we taught the text-book routine
that we do not seem to think that there may be
other and better means. I believe in the Greek
idea of education for culture, but I would have
other education along with it. I believe that it
is possible to acquire culture at the same time
that we acquire power. Education for culture alone
tends to isolate the individual ; education for sym-
pathy with one's environment tends to make the
individual an integral part of the activities and
progress of its time. At all events, I cannot see
why there is not as great possibility for culture in
the nature-studies as there is in the customary
subjects of the elementary school. My plea is
that new educational methods must be employed
before we can really reach the farming communities.
Nature-study is to supply some of these new
means. Nature-study must be made a part of
the extension-teaching of the time — of that move-

64 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

ment which takes the school to the people when
the people will not go to the school. The
educational impulse must be taken to every man's
door. If he shuts the door, it must be thrown
in at the window.

All agricultural educational work is yet in an
experimental stage in this country, with the
single exception of college work — and even this
is likely to be much modified within the next
few years. Therefore, there are no perfect or
generally accepted methods of nature-study as
applied to rural education; but sufficient ex-
perience has now accumulated to enable . any
good teacher to make a beginning anywhere with
full assurance of doing useful and lasting work.
The direct application of nature-study to agri-
cultural education appears to have been started by
the Agricultural College of Cornell University.
This was in 1895 ^^^ 1896. This work is of a
true extension character, being conducted from the
university as a center, by means of lectures,
publications, correspondence, and the organizing
of pupils into clubs. It is advisory and propa-
gandic. Its object is to interest teachers and
pupils of the public schools in nature-study work
with special reference to the agricultural condi-
tions. The first necessity in the work proved to
be the need of instruction for the teacher; and
to meet this necessity special literature was pre-
pared in the form of "nature-study leaflets."
These are designed to inspire the teacher, to give
him point of view, to send him directly to nature

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 65

to verify the facts and to extend his knowledge,
to suggest methods of teaching the subjects.
They are not texts from which recitations are to
be made. Merely as an example of one set of
ideals and one method of improving the agri-
cultural status, a brief outline of this work may
be given. The following extract is from a
sketch which I contributed to the Sixth Report
of Extension Work (Bulletin 206, Cornell
Experiment Station, October, 1902):

"To create a larger public sentiment in favor
of agriculture, to increase the farmer's respect for
his own business — these are the controlling pur-
poses in the general movement that we are carry-
ing forward under the title of nature-study. It
is not by teaching agriculture directly that this
movement can be started. The common schools
in New York will not teach agriculture to any
extent for the present, and the movement, if it is
to arouse a public sentiment, must reach beyond
the actual farmers themselves. The agricultural
status is much more than an affair of mere farm-
ing. The first undertaking, as we conceive the
problem, is to awaken an interest in the things
with which the farmer lives and has to do, for
a man is happy only when he is in sympathy
with his environment. To teach observation of
common things, therefore, has been the funda-
mental means. A name for the movement was
necessary. We did not wish to invent a new
name or phrase, as it would require too much
effort in explanation. Therefore, we chose the

66 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

current and significant phrase 'nature-study/
which, while it covers many methods and prac-
tices, stands everywhere for the opening of the
mind directly to the common phenomena of

nature.

"We have not tried to develop a system of
nature-study nor to make a contribution to the
pedagogics of the subject. We have merely
endeavored, as best we could, to reach a certain
specific result — the enlarging of the agricultural
horizon. We have had no pedagogic theories,
or, if we have, they have been modified or upset
by the actual conditions that have presented them-
selves. Neither do we contend that our own
methods and means have always been the best.
We are learning. Yet we are sure that the
general results justify all the effbrt. In fact, we
never believed so fully in the efficiency of this
kind of effort as at the present time.

"Theoretical pedagogic ideals can be applied
by the good teacher who comes into personal
relations with the children, and they are almost
certain to work out well. They cannot always
be applied, however, with persons who are to be
reached by means of correspondence and in a
great variety of conditions, and particularly when
many of the subjects lie outside the customary
work of the schools.

"Likewise, the subjects selected for our nature-
study work must be governed by conditions and
not wholly by ideals. We are sometimes asked
why we do not take up more distinctly agri-

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 67

cultural or economic topics. The answer is that
we take subjects that teachers will use. We
should like, for example, to give more attention
to insect subjects, but it is difficult to induce
teachers to work with them. If distinctly agri-
cultural topics alone were used, the movement
would have very little following and influence.
Moreover, it is not our purpose to teach technical
agriculture in the common schools, but to incul-
cate the habit of observing, to suggest work that
has distinct application to the conditions in which
the child lives, to inspire enthusiasm for country
life, to aid in home-making, and to encourage
a general movement toward the soil. These
matters cannot be forced. In every effort by
every member of the extension staff, the better-
ment of agricultural conditions has been the
guiding impulse, however remote from that pur-
pose it may have seemed to the casual observer.
"We have found by long experience that it
is unwise to give too much condensed subject-
matter. The individual teacher can give subject-
matter in detail because personal knowledge and
enthusiasm can be applied. But in general corre-
spondence and propagandist work this cannot be
done. With the Junior Naturalists, for example,
the first impulse is to inspire enthusiasm for some bit
of work which we hope to take up. This enthusi-
asm is awakened largely by the organization of
clubs and by the personal correspondence that is
conducted between the Bureau and these clubs
and their members. It is the desire, however.

68 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

to follow up this general movement with in-
struction in definite subject-matter with the
teacher. Therefore, about a year ago a course
in Home Nature-study was formally established
under the general direction of Mrs. Mary Rogers
Miller. It was designed to carry on the experi-
ment for one year, in order to determine whether
such a course would be productive of good results,
and to discover the best means of prosecuting it.
These experimental results have been gratifying.
Nearly 2,000 New York teachers are now
regularly enrolled in the Course, the larger part
of whom are outside the metropolitan and dis-
tinctly urban conditions. Every effort is made
to reach the rural teacher. Plans are now mak-
ing for the modification of this Course, by means
of which it is hoped that the number of teachers
receiving definite correspondence instruction will
be very largely increased. [The number has now
reached nearly 3,000, February 28, 1903.]

"In order that the work may reach the
children it must be greatly popularized and the
children must be met on their own ground.
The complete or ideal leaflet may have little
influence. For example, I prepared a leaflet on
' A Children's Garden ' which several people
were kind enough to praise. However, very little
direct result was secured from the use of this
leaflet until * Uncle John ' began to popularize it
and to make appeals to teachers and children by
means of personal talks, letters and circulars. So
far as possible the appeal to children was made in

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 69

their own phrase. The movement for the
children's garden has now taken definite shape,
and the result is that more than 26,000 children
in New York State were raising plants during the
present year. Another illustration of this kind
may be taken from the effort to improve the
rural school-grounds. I wrote a bulletin on

* The Improvement of Rural School-Grounds,'
but the tangible results were very few. Now,
however, through the work of * Uncle John '
with the teachers and the children a distinct
movement has begun for the cleaning and
improving of the school-grounds of the State.
This movement is yet in its infancy, but more

'than 400 school-yards are now in process of
renovation, largely through the efforts of the
children.

" The idea of organizing children into clubs
for the study of plants and animals and other
outdoor subjects, originated, so far as our work is
concerned, with Mr. John W. Spencer, himself
an actual and practical farmer. His character as

* Uncle John ' has done much to supply the
personality that ordinarily is lacking in corre-
spondence work, and an amount of interest
and enthusiasm has been developed amongst
the children which is surprising to those who
have not watched its progress.

"The problems connected with the rural
schools are probably the most difficult questions to
solve in the whole field of education. We believe
that the solution, however, cannot begin directly

70 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

with the rural schools themselves. It must begin
in educational centers and gradually spread to the
country districts. We are making constant efforts
to reach the rural schools themselves, and expect
to exhaust every means within our power, but it
is work that is attended with many inherent
difficulties. We sometimes feel that the agri-
cultural status can best be reached through the
hamlet, village and some of the city schools rather
than by means of the red schoolhouse on the
corner. By appealing to the school commissioners
in the rural districts, by work through teachers*
institutes, through farmers' clubs, granges and
other means we believe that we are reaching
farther and farther into the very agricultural
regions. It is difficult to get consideration for
purely agricultural subjects in the rural schools
themselves. Often the school does not have
facilities for teaching such subjects, the teachers
often are employed only for a few months, and
there is frequently a sentiment against innovation.
It has been said that one reason why agricultural
subjects are taught less in the rural schools of
America than in those of some parts of Europe
is because of the few male teachers and the
absence of school-gardens.

" This Cornell nature-study movement is one
small part of a general awakening in educational
circles looking toward bringing the child into
actual contact and sympathy with the objects with
which he has to do. This work is taking on
many phases. One aspect of it is its relation to

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 71

the teaching of agriculture and to the love of
country life. This aspect is yet in its early
experimental stage. The time will come when
some institution in every State will carry on work
along this line. It will be several years yet before
this type of work will have reached what may be
considered an established condition or before even
a satisfactory body of experience shall have been
attained. Out of the varied and sometimes
conflicting methods and aims that are now before
the public there will develop in time an institution-
movement of extension agriculture teaching.''

A nature-study movement alone is not sufficient
to awaken and reconstruct all the agricultural
interests. There should be coordinate efforts
outside the schools. In order merely to suggest
other lines of effort — and not to commend any
particular movement — the following classification
of the Cornell extension work may be made:
This extension activity in agriculture is regularly
and systematically reaching about 75,000 people
in that State. Indirectly the work spreads to far
greater numbers. Several causes have combined to
produce this result, four of which are paramount.
( I ) The people are ready for the work : they
want to learn. (2) Certain persons are ready to
do the work: they want to teach. (3) The
persons into whose hands the work has fallen are
given freedom and autonomy : they are not
restricted or hampered by those in authority.
(4) The State appropriates money : the appropri-
ation is made because work is done.

72 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

Of these four factors, the money is the least.
No institution is so poor that something cannot be
done if only the first three requisites are present.
Time by time, perhaps little by little, the money
will come. The work must be born, grow and
mature. Only flies and their like are born full
size.

Any good extension work is only a diligent
effort to meet the needs of the people. If
conditions seem to demand a certain kind of
effort, that effort is made. No theory of peda-
gogics is concerned in it. Years hence, perhaps,
it will be possible to found a theory on what shall
have been accomplished.

From small beginnings the work has grown
year by year. This is the most important fact in
the entire movement. The work has entered
fields that at first were not in sight. It has
demonstrated the value of various kinds of effort,
and has dropped those which seem to be of least
efficiency. The Cornell extension work, as it is
being prosecuted to-day [1902], may be displayed
as follows:

I. Extension Teaching: Endeavoring to give
a new point of view and a quickened enthusiasm
to those who live in the country.

(^) Nature-Study : Teaching the youth to see
and to appreciate whatever is nearest at hand,
thereby bringing him into sympathy with the
conditions in which he lives. This work is pros-
ecuted by several means :

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 73

I. By reaching the rising generation. The
school children in the grades are organized into
Junior Naturalist Clubs to the end that they may
love the country better and be content to live
therein. Each club receives an embellished
charter. Many thousand children are organized
each year. For these children a " Junior
Naturalist Monthly '' is published suggesting
topics for observation and study. Each child pays
monthly " dues " by v^riting a letter or essay
on some object that it has observed. The dues
may be the composition required by the teacher,
and it is sent to the nature-study office as it was
v^ritten, without correction. Having paid its
dues, the child receives a badge-button. The
Junior Naturalist Club is organized under the
general supervision of the teacher, but the detail of
the work is carried by the Nature-study Bureau,
thereby relieving the teacher of extra responsibil-
ities. In fact, the enthusiasm and centralized
interest which the Club introduces into the school
lighten the burdens of the teacher.

Connected with the Junior Naturalist enterprise
is a Junior Gardener movement, to encourage
specifically the growing of plants and the making
of gardens. This movement is also promulgated
through the schools. It now has attained great
headway.

Not only is it educational wisdom to begin
work with the children, but it is also one of the
most efficient means of getting work done. If the
children are once thoroughly interested in any

74 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

enterprise, the enterprise will *' go." The busiest
and most obdurate man will listen to a child ; so
will parents. If you want to start a nature-study
movement or to improve the school premises,
arouse the children first.

2. By reaching the teacher directly for the
purpose of reaching the pupil. For the teacher
" Nature-study Leaflets " have been prepared,
giving in each issue a suggestive presentation of
some nature-study topic, together with notes of
help and suggestion. For those teachers who
desire to pursue the subjects further, a home
reading course is organized and a " Home
Nature-study Lesson " is published.

3. By interesting the teaching fraternity in
general, through lectures at teachers' institutes
and conventions, attendance on particular schools
where work is being done, and other personal
work. A lecturer is employed to attend State
teachers' institutes, occupying a regular period on
the program; this work is possible through the
cooperation of the State Department of Public
Instruction.

4. By summer-school teaching in the teachers'
schools conducted by the State Department of
Public Instruction. For two years a special
nature-study summer-school was held at Cornell
University, but being obliged to husband the
resources this enterprise was reluctantly dropped.

5. By nature-study instruction in the Uni-
versity, given to those teachers who desire it.

6. By interesting the public in plant-growing,

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 75

particularly in the improvement of school-
grounds and the planting of gardens.

7. By direct personal correspondence with
parents, teachers, ministers and other interested
parties.

(^b\ A Farmers* 'Reading-Course ; inducing actual
farmers to pursue definite courses of reading in
the winter season. The farmer who desires to
read books will help himself. In this work, the
effort is made to gain the attention of those who
do not read books. The literature is furnished by
the University, being written by members of the
Extension Staff. This literature is in the form of
easy eight-page " Reading-Lessons," detailing
principles. Each lesson is accompanied by a set of
questions, the answers of which are sent to the
Bureau, entitling the reader to remain on the
rolls. The Reading-Lessons are in three series of
five each, as follows :

First-year series, on soil and plant-food.

Second-year series, on stock-feeding and dairying.

Third-year series, on fruit-growing.

Each reader takes these series in course. If
any one desires to continue his reading beyond the
third year, he is recommended to books.

The readers are aided in the formation of
Reading-Clubs, to meet twice each month for
the five winter months, thereby devoting two
discussions to each lesson. Inspectors and lecturers
visit the clubs.

The Reading-Club may arrange for experiments
on local agricultural difficulties, to be conducted

76 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

during the summer. This may be expected
to maintain the interest throughout the busy-
season.

The culmination of the Reading-Course is an
eleven weeks' term of instruction at the University
in the winter, to which readers and others are
eligible.

Reading-Course and text-book work must not
be confounded with true nature-study work. The
former aims directly at the imparting of informa-
tion ; the latter seeks to put one in sympathy with
his surroundings. Any successful reading-course
work brings the reader into sympathy with
nature, but that is not its prime motive. The
nature-study bulletin is distinct from the agricul-
ture or farming bulletin, however elementary the
latter may be.

Coordinate with the regular farmers' Reading-
Course, there is a course for farmers' wives. The
most difficult and discouraging feature of American
agriculture is the isolated position of the farmer's
wife. This position can be alleviated only by the
elevation of the general tone of farm life. The
farmers' wives' course is modeled after that for
farmers, but it has its own literature. The
publications of the Farmers' Wives' Reading-
Course are thus far as follows :

Saving Steps,

Home Sanitation,

Saving Strength,

Food for the Farmer's Family,

The Kitchen Garden,

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 'jj

Practical Farm Housekeeping (two lessons),

Reading in the Farm Home.
[Those who desire a history of the farmers' reading-
course movement should consult Bull. 72, Office
of Experiment Stations, U. S. Department of
Agriculture.]

2. Itinerant Experimenting: Endeavoring
to solve local agricultural perplexities by experi-
ments on the spot, and also to illustrate the
application of well-known knowledge. These
experiments are of many kinds, conducted in many
places. This is necessarily so, because the
difficulties of farmers are so many and various.
Certain definite series of illustrative experiments,
have been planned from the central station, however,
and farmers have been asked to cooperate. Chief
of these are experiments with fertilizers, sugar
beets, spraying orchards, potato and bean culture,
cover-cropping, alfalfa-growing, poultry-raising.
Experts are sent to investigate outbreaks of insects,
fungous attacks on plants, diseases of stock, and other
special difficulties. Experiments on various
problems intimately associated with the extension
work are also made at the University itself
Much of the results of the experimental work
connected with the extension enterprise has
appeared in bulletins ; but its chief value is not in
its publication, but in its educational effisct in the
communities in which it is conducted.

All this looks large and complete when seen in
type, but it is the merest beginning of what should

78 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

be and can be done. Other lines of effort must be
added. In many places similar work is in progress.
The great agricultural States of the middle West
Dromise to become leaders. The efficiency of the
work will depend in large measure on its adapt-
ability to the particular conditions and people to
be served.

The ideals of nature-study are everywhere the
same ; but the methods and means are capable
of endless modification. There is always danger
that too much emphasis will be placed on mere
"learning" on the part of the child or the pupil.
The real value of the extension work with the
young lies in interesting, enthusing, inspiring
them. Mere information, however valuable, will
not cause a person to be a farmer, nor incline him
to live in the country. Of course the work must
be practical— that is, it must be truthful, direct,
forceful, and must put the child into intimate
contact with its own life. It must aim to
give him power and enterprise rather than assorted
facts — although the facts may be so handled that
they become the means and not the end. I fear
that some good persons are too insistent on getting
"agriculture" into the schools. There is no gain
in getting the word into the curriculum unless
the subject is really taught with optimism and
with purpose.

It is a common desire to bring the rural schools
into intimate relations with the life of the
community merely by employing teachers having
knowledge of farm life. This may be of little

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 79

consequence : the first merit of a teacher is to be
able to teach, whatever his sympathies or technical
knowledge. Many good persons seem to think
that the only thing to do to reform any school
problem is to get a teacher, forgetting that, in
the long run, teachers arise in response to a
general demand, or at least must be supported by
a public sentiment. It is really beginning with
the wrong end of the problem merely to ask for
teachers having knowledge of agriculture. We
should first awaken a general desire on the part
of patrons for the new type of instruction : when
this desire is aroused, the teachers will be found.
Usually more can be done by beginning with the
children rather than with the teacher. The
children can be aroused by some outside agency.
This is the meaning of the Junior Naturalist
movement in New York State. Probably the
true way to bring the rural school into intimate
touch with rural affairs is to begin both with
patrons and teachers, placing far the greater
dependence on the work with patrons — and with
the patrons the best results are to be expected
from work with the children. By interesting
the parents we shall bring pressure to bear on
local school boards, school commissioners and
superintendents, and school teachers to provide
more usable and direct instruction.

Children are always ready to " do something.**
The success of kindergarten and school-garden
work rests on this common trait. The school-
garden idea can be variously modified. A recent

8o THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

adaptation of it is the " district school experiment
garden" projected by O. J. Kern, Superintendent
of Schools of Winnebago County, Illinois.
These Illinois gardens are designed for the
explicit teaching of agricultural subjects. Is it
not strange that schools in farming communities
should not be equipped with a bit of farmed land ?
Aside from the tilled school-garden, why not
make arrangement with the adjoining farmer to
pasture his stock next the school-ground now and
then ? And why not have this farmer give the
children talks about the animals ?

In recent years there has been a marvelous
application of knowledge and research to agricul-
tural practice. We have exerted every effort to
increase the productiveness and efficiency of the
farm, and we have entered a new era in farming —
a fact that will be more apparent in the years to
come than it is now. The burden of the new
agricultural teaching has been largely the
augmentation of material wealth. Hand in hand
with this new teaching, however, should go an
awakening in the less tangible but equally
powerful things of the spirit. More attractive
and more comfortable farm homes, better reading,
more responsive interest in the events of the
world, closer touch with the common objects
about him — these must be looked to before agri-
culture really can be revived. Appeal to greater
efficiency of the farm alone cannot permanently
relieve the agricultural status. This is all well
illustrated in the attitude of children toward the

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 8i

farm. In a certain rural school in New York
State of say forty-five pupils, I asked all those
children that lived on farms to raise their hands :
all hands but one went up. I then asked all those
who wanted to live on the farm to raise their
hands : only that one hand went up ! Now, these
children were too young to feel the appeal of more
bushels of potatoes or more pounds of wool, yet
they had this early formed their dislike of the
farm. Some of this dislike is probably only an
ill-defined desire for a mere change, such as one
finds in all occupations, but I am convinced that
the larger part of it was a genuine dissatisfaction
with farm life. These children felt that their lot
was less attractive than that of other children ; I
concluded that a flower garden and a pleasant
yard would do more to content them with living
on the farm than ten more bushels of wheat
to the acre. Of course, it is the greater and
better yield that will enable the farmer to supply
these amenities ; but at the same time it must be
remembered that the increased yield itself does
not awaken a desire for them. I should make
farm life interesting before I make it profitable.
These points of view are well expressed by
David Felmley, President of the Illinois State
Normal School, at Normal : " It is evident that
the argicultural experiment station will never
accomplish its purpose unless there is diffused
among our farming population an elementary
knowledge of the sciences relating to agriculture.
The rural schools and the high schools attended

82 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

by farmers' sons must provide the necessary
instruction. There seems no other practical way.
The special instruction offered in this line is not
merely to train skilful farmers. It is quite
important that farmer boys and girls learn to
appreciate and love the country. There need be
here no division in material or method. The
knowledge of soil and atmosphere, of plant and
animal life that makes him an intelligent
producer, puts him in sympathetic touch with
these activities of nature. If the farmer as he
trudges down the corn rows under the June sun
sees only clods, and weeds, and corn, he leads an
empty and a barren life. But if he knows of the
work of the moisture in air and soil, of the use
of air to root and leaf, of the mysterious
chemistry of the sunbeam, of the vital forces in
the growing plant, of the bacteria in the soil
liberating its elements of fertility ; if he sees the
relation of all these natural forces to his own
work ; if he can follow his crop to the market,
to foreign lands, to the mill, to the oven and the
table ; if he knows of the hundreds of commercial
products obtained from his corn or the animals
that it fattens : he then realizes that he is no
mere toiler ; he is marshaling the hosts of the
universe, and upon the skill of his generalship
depends the life of nations.''

It will be seen at once that all these new ideals
are bound to result in a complete revolution of
our current methods of rural school-teaching.
The time cannot be very far distant when we

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 83

shall have systems of common schools that are
built upon the fundamental idea of serving the
people in the very lives that the people are to
lead. In many places there are strong protests
against the old order ; in other places there are
distinct beginnings of the new order. The
following protest is by John J. McMahan, State
Superintendent of Education for South Carolina:
" The old-time high school prepares for the
exceptional life. There is little room for Latin
and Greek and fancy learning in the system of
education that looks to the future lives of the
great body of breadwinners and home-builders.
We must abandon the pleasing delusion that all
go to school with expectation of afterward going
to college. We know that hardly one in a
hundred will ever go to college. We define
education as a preparation for complete living.
Have we not adapted our preparation to the
unusual and improbable life, and largely neglected
preparing the average man for the duties almost
certain to be upon him ? We should recognize
that complete living is a relative term, and that
the complete life which is the ideal of the
philosopher, and of the statesman as well, is not
the complete life that can be realized at this
stage of human development by any great number
of our citizens. In holding up a high standard
of education as the ultimate right of every citizen,
let us not be so unmindful of the present as to
deny to nearly all that education which could be
given them to their great benefit and happiness.'^

84 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

The beginnings of the new order are seen in
the nature-study movement, the establishing of
agricultural high schools, the strong agitation for
country or district industrial schools, the spread
of reading-courses, the rise of pupils' gardens,
the general awakening of rural communities.
Books and methods are now made for town
schools rather than for country schools; the real
texts for the rural schools are just now beginning
to appear, and they represent a new type of school
literature. In the future, the text-book is to
have relatively less influence than in the past.
We have been living in a text-book and museun
age. All this old method is not to be complained
of. The fact that so many new subjects and
propaganda are coming in shows that we are in
the midst of an evolution : we are in the making
of progress.

This new teaching for the farmer is a most
attractive field for well-directed effort. We need
more teachers for it in the colleges and normal
schools and common schools. The teaching in
our agricultural colleges should be seized with the
missionary spirit, with the desire to send out young
persons who care not so much to make professors
and experimenters in the great institutions, as to
give themselves to spread the gospel of nature-love
and of self-respecting resourceful farming through
all the colleges and all the public schools. The
time is coming quickly when the college or school
that wants really to reach the people must teach
rural subjects from the human point of view.

THE AGRICULTURAL PHASE 85

The real solution of the agricultural problem

which is at the same time the national problem

is to give the countryman a vital, intellectual,
sympathetic, optimistic interest in his daily life!
For myself, if I have any gifts, I mean to use
them for the spiritualizing of agriculture.

We are on the borderland of a mighty country :
v^e are v^^aiting for a leader to take us to its center.

VIII

REVIEW

In the increasing complexities of our lives we
need nothing so much as simplicity and repose.
In city or country or on the sea, nature is the
surrounding condition. It is the universal environ-
ment. Since we cannot escape this condition,
it were better that we have no desire to escape.
It were better that we know the things, small and
great, which make up this environment, and that
we live with them in harmony, for all things are
of kin ; then shall we love and be content.

All men love nature if they but knew it. The
methods and fashions of our living obscure the
universal passion. The more perfect the machinery
of our lives the more artificial do they become.
Teaching is ever more methodical and complex.
The pupil is impressed with the vastness of knowl-
edge and the importance of research. I-This is
well ; but at some point in the school-life there
should be the opening of the understanding to
the simple wisdom of the fields. One's happiness
depends less on what he knows than on what he
feels.

There are men and women who pursue science
for science's sake without thought of its relation
to human lives. They are the explorers of the

(86)

REVIEW 87

intellectual sphere. Immensely do they extend
our horizon. They add to the store of subject-
matter. They make progress possible. But these
persons must always be the few. They are a
professional class. Most persons desire those
things which have relation to the ideals of living.
To them, science as science is of little moment.
They cannot pursue it. It is dry. But it may be
made a means of giving them closer touch with
nature. If pursued too far or in too great detail,
it may repel rather than attract. What we teach
as science drives many a person from nature. We
must reach the people; but we can reach them
only by looking from their point of view. Most
persons cannot be investigators. In the school-life
there must come a reaction from the too exclusive
view-point of science.

In the early years we are not to teach
nature as science, we are not to teach it
primarily for method or for drill : we are to
teach it for living and for loving — and this is
nature-study. On these points I make no
compromise.

The best living must always be a striving for
ideals. The day of the idealist is not passed. It
is here. We must not allow the phenomenal
development of our material progress to obscure
it. We must rise to higher ideals. We must
educate the child for the life of the next generation.
A good teacher has the gift of prophecy. The
twentieth century is coming in with a spiritual
awakening. One sign of this awakening is the

88 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

outlook nature-ward. The growing passion for
country life is a soul-movement.

More and more, in this time of books and
reviews, do we need to take care that we think
our own thoughts. We need to read less and to
think more. We need personal, original contact
with objects and events. We need to be self-poised,
self-reliant. The strong man entertains himself
with his own thoughts. No person should rely-
solely on another person for his happiness.

The power that moves the world is the power
of the teacher.

PART II

THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE

I ONCE saw two sisters standing on the doorstep
bidding good-by to their husbands, who were off
for a day's outing. One looked at the sky and
said : '^ I am afraid it will rain." The other looked
at the sky and said: ^'I know that you'll have a
good time." There was one sky, but there were
two women. There were two types of mind.
There were two outlooks on the world. There
were two points of view.

The greatest thing in life is the point of view.
It determines the current of our lives.

The satisfaction that we derive from the external
world is determined by the attitude in which we
consider it. All unconsciously one's habit of
mind toward the nature-world is formed. We
grow into our opinions and beliefs without knowing
why. It is therefore well to challenge these opin-
ions now and then, to see that they contain the
minimum of error and misdirection. This chal-
lenging of the point of view is the theme of the
text that I am writing.

Nature-study, properly handled, interprets na-
ture. It does not stop dead with the. information
that is acquired. Tt^endeavors to understand as
well as to see.

(90

II

SCIENCE FOR SCIENCE'S SAKE

The other day I attended a teachers' convention.
A demure little woman told of the enthusiasm with
which her pupils collected butterflies and plants,
and she described the museum that they had made.
She showed a folio of mounted plants, and a cigar-
box containing insects. I admired the specimens,
and mentally I complimented her judgment in
finding so good use for such a box. The tobacco
odor kept the carnivorous bugs away, and I also
commended the judgment of the bugs. There
was genuine enthusiasm in the little woman's
manner, and I wanted to be a young naturalist.
When she was talking, I strayed far in the fields and
picked a dandelion.

But there was a man in the audience who
squelched the little woman. Her methods were
all wrong. They were worse than wrong : the
children must unlearn what she had taught them.
She should have begun with some definite subject,
and followed it systematically and logically. The
pupil must be held to the task day after day, until he
masters the topic. To skip from subject to subject
is to be superficial. This way of teaching does
not result in mental drill. To make a collection
is only play, and names are vulgar. The pupil

(92)

SCIENCE FOR SCIENCE'S SAKE 93

must be impressed with the immensity and impor-
tance of his subject. When he was talking, I
smelled alcohol and I saw a frog in a museum jar.

Which was right? No doubt each was correct
from the personal point of view, but wrong from
the other's point of view. I recalled that the little
woman only recited what she had done ; the man
upbraided her for not doing something else. Per-
haps it is easy to advise and to criticize. The little
woman was teaching children. She wanted to lead
them to love the things they saw. She approached
the subject from the human side, for are not the
boy and the girl a part of what we call nature?
They are not yet tamed and conventionalized.
Does not every boy and girl like to go in the
fields and ^^get" things? She was not thinking
of the subject-matter ; or if she did think of it, she
knew that it could take care of itself. All she was
thinking of — poor soul! — was to interest and
educate the children. And she knew that if she
set a subject and followed it day by day the seats
would soon be vacant.

The man was thinking of his college students;
perhaps he had not considered that these students
already liked the subject and needed only instruc-
tion. He forgot that you cannot force a person to
choose a thing, although you may force him to take
it. His were picked students, one from this town
and another from that ; hers were all the pupils in
her little community. His pupils had seen and
had chosen ; to hers the world was all unseen and
•untried. His were the one in a hundred ; hers

94 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

were the entire hundred. His students had elected
the subject; for this subject they were to Uve; they
would increase the boundaries of knowledge ; they
would be scientists. He did not consider that all
pupils would not be scientists.

Sometimes it seems as if scientists think that they
have the right of way in the subjects which they
espouse; but there is more than one way of inter-
preting nature. Their view is necessary in all
matters of fact and truth, but not when points of
view are concerned. This is well illustrated in
the usurpation of common words. The word
*^ organic '^ relates to organisms and their products.
But when the chemist studies the composition of
organic compounds he defines the word in terms
of chemistry. To him an organic compound may
be a carbon compound or a carbohydrate derivative ;
and he can make an organic compound without
any relation to an organism I Organic is originally
a biological, not a chemical idea. Again, our fore-
fathers used the word ^'bug" for various kinds of
bugs; but scientists have taken this word ^'bug''
and have made it mean only a particular kind of a
bug. This is all well enough amongst them-
selves, but when they attempt to make all the rest
of the world use ^^bug'' as they do they go too
far. Our forefathers have prior claims. It would
be better if newly made words could be used for
new ideas. Science needs_.aJ££hnical language of
its own.

What is the kernel of all this discussion about
the pedagogical sin of making collections and of

SCIENCE FOR SCIENCE'S SAKE 95

attaching names thereto? The old idea of the
study of nature was to make an inventory oTtHingsT
The objects are bewilderingly numerous, and to
put them away in a cabinet, with a proper ticket
attached, was to know them. The great want was
names and classification ; and these names must be
arranged in books. This natural history bookkeep-
ing received itsTargest impetus from the'Friiomial
method of naming, which might be called a system
of ^^ double entry." ^

This naming of objects is necessary. It is the
starting-point, as a city directory TsT! ^ut it is only
"the beginning of wisdom. It is not an end. The
profound speculations of the modern evolutionists
have emphasized the importance of the things
themselves, and particularly of real or live things.
The point of view has changed. Do not let your
pupils make an herbarium, the modern teacher will
say, but tell them to study the plants. We all
sympathize with this point of view ; but what are
we going to do with this native and exuberant desire
of the child to explore and to collect? We are
taught, also, that we should develop and strengthen
the natural powers. One of my friends will not
let his little boy make an herbarium, because that
is mere superficial amusement ; so the child collects
postage stamps. He does not care to have him
know the names of plants, but he is very careful to
have him properly introduced to visitors ; and what
is an introduction but a conventional passing of

names? I

I believe that we have gone too^ far in decrying

96 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

the making of collections. We can make the
collecting the means of securing real information.
We can fasten the attention of^the child. The one
caution is, not to make it an end. The child
cannot collect without seeing the object as it lives
and grows. It appeals to him more in the field
than it does in the museum. Let him collect for
the purpose of understanding a problem. Where
does the dandelion grow ? What are the plants in
yonder bog? How many are the weeds in the
orchard? What are the borers in the old log?
Set the child a field problem and he will collect in
spite of himself. Then the collecting has teaching
power. But to make a collection of one hundred
specimens in order to obtain a pass-mark is scarcely
worth the eflfort. The poinLXwish to urge is that
there is no reason in the nature of things why sub-
jects always should be taught this way or that, so
long as they are taught truthfully — and there are
many ways of teaching the trutbV " The w% ta.
teach is, after all, mostly a matter of experience
and expediencyl^ Things were not made either to
be analyzed or collected.

Ill

THE EXTRINSIC AND INTRINSIC VIEWS OF NATURE

**The purpose of this exercise is to tell children
how to see the hidden beauties of flowers.'^ Thus
ran the announcement at the opening of the class-
room period. Is it worth while to tell them any
such thing? Why not teach them to be interested
in plants? Why give them a half-truth when they
might have the whole truth ?

Ths_lLbeauty " of a flower or a bird is only an
incident,:, the plant or the bird is the important
thing to kno^. Beauty is not an end. . The ^r^on
who starts out to see beauty in plants is often in the
condition of mind that the dear old lady was who
came into my conservatory and exclaimed, as she
saw the geraniums, ^^Oh, they are as pretty as
artificial flowers ! ''

Bttfcc=i!Sie people are not looking for beauty,
afee^s3s&; they look for mere satisfying form or
trcolor or oddity. They confound beauty with
prettiness or" with outward attractiveness. Real
beauty is deeper than sensation. It inheres in
fitness of means to end_3_$__Wj£l]_jasJn physical attri-
butes. XhjLchild should see the object itself before
he sees its parts. Teach first the whole bug, the

"vvTroIe'T)Tr37 the whole plant. The botanist may
(977

<■

98 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

well devote his life to a single cell^ but the layman
'wants to know.diejtrees and the woods.

I dislike to hear people say that they love flowers.
They should love plants ; then they have a deeper
hold on nature. Intellectual interest should go
deeper than mere shape or color. Teachers or
parents ask the child to see how ''pretty" the
object is ; but in most cases the child wants to know
how it lives and what it does.
f It is instructive to note the increasing love for
\ wild animals and plants as a country grows old and
mature. This is particularly well illustrated in
plants. In pioneer times there are too many
plants. The eflort is to get rid of them. The
forest is razed and the roadsides are cleaned. The
\ pioneer is satisfied with things in the gross. If he
plants at all, he usually plants things exotic or
strange to the neighborhood. The woman grows
a geranium or fuchsia in a tin can, and no»^ and
then makes a flower-bed in the front yard ; but the
man is likely to think such things beneath him.
If a man has flowers at all, he must have
something that will fill the eye. Sunflowers are
satisfying.

r- But the second and third generations begin to
plant forests and to allow the roadsides to grow wild
at intervals. Persons come to be satisfied with their
common surroundings and to derive less pleasure
from objects merely because they are unlike their
j surroundings. Choice plants come into the yards
here and there, and the men of the household begin
to care for them. The birds and wild animals are

\

THE VIEWS OF NATURE 99

cherished. Love of books increases. All this
marks the growth of the intellectual life.

r Airierica is iilaxid of cut, flowers. Nowhere does
the cut-flower trade assume such commanding

/ importance. Churches and homes are decorated
with them. One sees the churches of the Old
World decorated with plants in pots or tubs. The
Englishman or the German loves to care for the

^ plant from the time it sprouts until it dies : it is a
companion. The American snips off its head and
puts it in his buttonhole : it is an ornament. I

\ have sometimes wondered whether the average
flower-buyer knows that flowers grow on plants.
Flowers are fleeting.

/ All of us have known people who derive more
satisfaction from a poor plant that never blooms
than others do from a bunch of American Beauty
roses at $5. There is individuality — I had almost
said personality — in a growing, living plant, but
there is little of it about a detached flower. And
it does not matter so much if the plant is poor
and weakly and scrawny. Do we not love poor
and crippled and crooked people ? A plant in the
room on washday is worth more than a bunch of
flowers on Sunday.

r But the American taste is rapidly changing.
Each year the florist's trade sees a proportionately
greater demand for plants^ The same change is
seen in the parks and Kome grounds. More and
more the gross carpet-beds are relegated to those
parts of the grounds that are devoted to curios-
ities, or they are omitted altogether, and in their

loo THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

stead are restful sward and peaceful verdure.
Flowers are not to be despised, but they are
accessories.

This habit of looking first at what we call the
beauty of objects is closely associated with the old
conceit that everything is made to please man : man
is only demanding his own. It is true that every-
thing is man's because he may use it or enjoy it,
but not because it was designed and ''made" for
*'him'' in the beginning. This notion that all
things were made for man's special pleasure is
colossal self-assurance. It has none of the humility
of the psalmist, who exclaimed, "What is man,
that thou art mindful of him? "

"What were these things made for, then?"
asked my friend. Just for themselves 1 Each thing
lives for itself and its kind, and to live is worth the
effort of living for man or bug. But there are
more homely reasons for believing that things were
not made for man alone. There was logic in the
farmer's retort to the good man who told him that
roses were made to make man happy. " No, they
wa'n't," said the farmer, "or they wouldn't 'a'
had prickers."

Being human, we interpret nature in human
terms. Much of our interpretation of nature is
really an interpretation of ourselves. Because a
condition or a motive obtains in human affairs, we
assume that it obtains everywhere. The only point
of view is our own point of view. Of necessity,
we assume a starting-point; therefrom we evolve
an hypothesis which may be either truth or fallacy.

THE VIEWS OF NATURE loi

Asa Gray combated Agassiz's hypothesis that species
were originally created where we now find them
and in approximately the same numbers by invoking
Maupertuis's ''principle of least action "—'' that
it is inconsistent with our idea of divine wisdom
that the Creator should use more power than was
necessary to accomplish a given end." The result
may be secured with a less expenditure of energy
than Agassiz's method would entail. But who
knows that ''our idea of the divine wisdom" is
truthful ? It is only a human metaphor ; but, being
human, it is useful.

Much of our thinking about nature is only the
working out of propositions in logic, and logic is
sometimes, I fear, but a substitute for fact. It is
impossible to put ourselves in nature's place — if I
may be allowed the personification ; that is, difficult
to get the point of view of the organism that we are
studying. If it were possible to get that point of
view, it would be an end to much of our specu-
lation ; we should then deal with fact.

We hope that we are coming nearer to an
intrinsic view of animals and plants ; yet we are so
intent on discovering what ought to.be that we
forget to accept what is.

IV

MUST A ^^USE" be found FOR EVERYTHING ?

Each pupil had a plant of the spring buttercup.
The teacher called attention to the long fibrous
roots, the parted leaves, the yellow flowers ; but
these parts were apparently only incidentals, for she
touched them lightly. But the hairs on the stem
and leaves were important. They must be of some
use to the plant. What is it ? Evidently to protect
the plant from cold, for does not the plant throw up
its tiny stem in the very teeth of winter ? It was
clear enough ; and thus are we taught that not the
least thing is made in vain. Everything has its
place and use ; it is our business to determine what
the uses are. We must think of these things as we
come and go.

I wondered how these children would look upon
the plants and animals they meet, and what the
great round world would mean to them. The
blackberry has thorns to keep away the animals that
would harm it ; the rabbit has soft short fur that it
may not be caught in the briers ; the poison sumac
has venom to protect it from those who would
destroy it; the crow is black that it may not be
seen at night; the nettle has stings to punish its
enemies ; the dog fennel has rank scent to protect

(102)

A "USE" FOR EVERYTHING? 103

it from the browsing animals. All the world is as
perfect as a museum I

I wondered what would happen if some inquis-
itive child were to ask what becomes of all the plants
which have no thorns or hairs or poison or ill scent.
What if he should ask why the thornless blackberry
does not perish, or why the sumacs that are not
poisonous still live, or if he should suggest that the
dandelion comes up earlier in the spring than the
buttercup and yet has no hairs on its slender flower
stem? As I wondered, a little hand went up.
The teacher granted a question. "Pigweeds ain't
got any prickers," said the boy. I saw that the
boy was a philosopher. ''True enough," replied
the teacher promptly, ''but I am sure that it has
something with which to protect itself."

Thereby I knew her point of view : she had
made up her mind what to see, and it was necessary
only to hunt until she saw it; and in this respect
she was Hke many another. Persons seem to inter-
pret the struggle for existence as a fight. It is a
sanguinary combat between adults. Everything
must protect itself with armor. A botanist, in
writing a description of a new and strange plant,
noted the peculiar spines and then remarked :
*' That these are of some use to the plant can hardly
be doubted. Perhaps they serve to prevent the
access of undesirable insects."

Nothing is easier than to find an explanation for
anything ; the only difficulty is to determine whether
the explanation is true. I have just read in an old
book that the reason why a particular kind of graft

I04 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

failed to grow was because of the *^ disappointment
of the sap." I laughed at the expression ; and yet
is it not as scientific as to say that the hairs exist
to keep the crowfoot warm or that the sumac
has poison to protect it from its enemies ? The
teacher may as well have said that Jimmie Brown
has freckles so that the sun will not tan
his skin ; and the statement would be hard to
disprove.

The other'day a teacher asked me whether it is
not true that the cactus has spines in order to protect
it from browsing animals. I told her that I did not
know. As I was a stranger to her, she wondered
at my ignorance. She wanted to know why I did
not know. I told her that I had no good evidence
that an animal wanted to browse on a cactus.
Perhaps the cactus spines are older than browsing
animals. Perhaps there was some special condition
or reason in geologic time. Perhaps the spines
were in some way the incidental result of the
contraction of the plant body, which contraction
was associated with the necessity of reducing the
evaporating surface in an arid climate. Perhaps a
hundred things. She was surprised that I had to
go into geologic time to bury my ignorance. She
wanted cause and effect side by side and in the
present. Then she could see them. It is a bother
to look behind for causes.

This is a typical case. This attitude toward nature
comes almost daily to the teacher ; in fact, it some-
times comes from the teacher. The mischief is
increased by many popular books on science, and

A "USE'* FOR EVERYTHING? 105

some of these books have been written by persons
who have done noble work for truth.

This is one of the greatest faults with the popular
outlook on nature — the belief that every feature
of plant or animal has a distinct use in the present
time and that one has only to look to see what that
use is. Persons often look at the little things and
miss the big ones. They look for the hairs and
miss the plant. They see the unusual and rare and
overlook the common. I wish that people might
learn to see dandelions.

Having seen a thing of which the function is not
evident, they assume a condition and jump at a
conclusion. A plant has poison ; various creatures
eat plants ; the creatures are killed by poison :
therefore the plant has poison to protect itself from
the creatures. Now, it may even be true that the
poison does protect the plant, but there is no proof
thereby that the poison was produced for that
purpose. The physiologist may find that the poison
in the given case is merely a waste product of some
chemical metabolism, and that the plant is fortunate
in getting rid of it. If the plant is now and then
protected, the result is only an incident. If
it should appear that one kind of plant, by natural
selection, has developed poison in order to protect
itself, the fact would be spread abroad in book and
magazine, but it would not be stated that it was one
case out of a thousand. The exception is enlarged
into the rule. Persons like to write about perfect
adaptation of means to ends, without a slip or break
in the process. A teacher brought a flower and

io6 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

asked what mechanism it had to insure cross-
polHnation. I told her that I was not aware that it
had any; and she was surprised. I wish that
somebody would write a book about misfits in
nature.

No one knows what spines and thorns are ^4or, "
and the true naturalist does not ask the question.
He wants to know how they came to be. How did
they originate ? What is their significance in the
development of this particular race ? And he sets
to work to find out. He cannot find out as he
rides by on his horse — especially if he rides a
hobby-horse.

Truth is, this everything-has-a-use dogma is in
part a reaction from the teachings of Darwin and
his followers. People want to believe in definite,
final, set events. The dogma of special creation
was overthrown. Things have persisted because
of natural selection — because they were best fitted
to persist. The result, in many cases, is perfect
adaptation of every organ and attribute. There
followed a special literature on adaptation and
mimicry and the like. The examples may all have
been true, but one result has been to lead persons
to look for adaptations and mimicry where there
may be none. What did it matter if there is no
special creation? — there is complete and universal
adaptation, and our notions of what ought to be are
verified.

But, some one will say, if there is natural selection
and survival of the fittest, adaptation must follow as
a consequence. Yes; but it does not follow that

A "USE" FOR EVERYTHING? 107

every part or feature of the organism is specially
adapted. A strong feature may carry other features
which are merely innocuous or even harmful, as a
horse carries a rider; and then, if unfit features
tend to pass away, these features are misfits until
they have disappeared.

.-Mt*i*'~'-.^ •

"«ecK

'"iftS!^

^ ( THE NEW HUNTING )

"*>-.

The world is full of animals and plants. Every
animal and plant has the power to multiply itself
many fold. Every one contends for an opportunity
to live.

This contention forces the individual to live for
itself. Self-preservation, it is said, is the first law
of nature. The animal appropriates food, usurps
territory, kills and even devours its contestants.
It kills because it must. It is goaded by the whip
of necessity. To live is the highest desire that it
knows. Its acts need no justification.

Man also is an animal. He has come up from
the world-fauna. On his way he contended hand
to hand with the other animal creation. He killed
from necessity of obtaining food. As he arose
above his contestants, this necessity became less
urgent. He has now obtained dominion, but he is
not yet fully emancipated from the necessity of
taking life. Perhaps complete emancipation will
come.

The old desire to kill — first born of necessity —
still lingers. But now we kill also for ^^ sport.'*
Practically a new motive has been born into the
world with man — the desire to kill for the sake of
killing. One generation of white men is sufficient
practically to exterminate the bison and several

(io8)

THE NEW HUNTING 109

other species. All this needs justification. The
lower creation is not the plaything of man.

We are still obliged to kill for our necessities.
We must secure food and raiment. More and
more we are rearing the animals that we would take
for food. We give them happier lives. We
protect them from the severities of the struggle for
existence. We remove them from the necessities
of protecting themselves from violence. We take
our own. There is no question of morals. We
give that we may take ; and we take because we
must.

To kill for mere sport is a very different matter:
it lies outside the realm of struggle for existence.
Too often there is not even the justification of fair
play. Usually the hunter exposes himself to no
danger from the animal that he would kill. He
takes no risks. He has the advantage of long-range
weapons. There is no combat. Over on the lake
shore are great cones of ice, built up by the
accretions of the waves. Several stalwart men have
skulkedbehind them andlie secure fromobservation.
A little flock of birds, unsuspecting, unprotected,
harming no man, obeying the laws of their kind,
skims across the water. The guns discharge. The
whole flock falls, the mangled birds struggling and
crying, and tainting the water with their blood as
they are carried away on the waves, perhaps to die
on the shores. There is a shout of victory. Surely,
man is the king of beasts I

But there is another and fairer side than this.
The lack of feeling for wounded animals is often

no THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

thoughtlessness. The satisfaction in hunting is
often the joy of skill in marksmanship, the pleasure
of woodcraft, the enthusiasm of being out-of-doors,
the keen delight in discovering the haunts and ways
of the nature-folk. Many a hunter finds more
pleasure in all these things than in the game that
he bags. The great majority of hunters are gentle
and large-hearted men. They are the first to
discourage mere wantonness and brutality. Under
their hand, certain animals are likely to increase,
because they eliminate the rapacious species. To
the true sportsman hunting is not synonymous with
killing. It is primarily a means of enjoying the free
world of the Out-of-doors. This nature-spirit is
growing, and there are many ways of knowing the
fields and woods. The camera is competing with
the trap and gun.

I must not be understood as opposed to
hunting with the gun or the rod. Every man has
a right to decide these questions for himself. I
wish only to suggest that there are other ideals.
I wish to point out the tendency to know things
as they live and for what they are. There was a
time when animals were known mostly in museums,
or in books that smelled of museums. We now
know them in woods and fields. We know what
they do, as well as what they are. Making pictures
from stuflfed specimens will soon be a thing of the
past. Read any book of natural history of fifty
years ago; then read one of to-day. Note the road
by which we have come : this may color your own
attitude toward the nature-world.

THE NEW HUNTING m

A new literature has been born. It Is the
literature of the Out-of-doors. It is written from
the world viewpoint, rather than from the study
viewpoint. Man is not the only, nor even the
chief, actor. Even the stories of animals of the old
time do not have the flavor of this bright new
literature. Not so very long ago animal stories
were often told for the purpose of carrying a
moral — they were self-conscious. Now they are
told because they are worth telling. The real
moral is the interest in the animal and the way in
which it contrives to live, not in some extraneous
literary appendage that tries to make an application
to human conduct. No longer can one write a
good nature-piece until he has intimate knowledge
of the animal or plant in the wild, and has tried to
put himself in its place. Perhaps the old school of
literary effort is not losing ground ; but it is certain
that the new is gaining. The new literature is
founded on specific technical knowledge, but it
embraces all the human sympathies. It is the
outcome of the study of objects and phenomena.
The first product was scientific literature. The
second is the lucid resourceful nature-writing of the
present day. There are new standards of literary
excellence.

The awakening interest in the nature-world is
strongly reflected in the game laws — for these laws
are only an imperfect expression of the growing
desire to let everything live its own life. The
recent revulsion of feeling against the shooting of
trapped pigeons, as expressed in agitations before

112 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

state legislatures, is an excellent example in point.
It is gratifying that a prominent place in the
discussions for good game laws is taken by sportsmen
themselves. It is recognized that hunting for sport
must be kept within bounds, and that it must rise
above mere slaughter of defenseless animals.

Another expression of this growing sympathy is
exhibited in the reservation of certain areas in
which animals are to be unmolested. It is a most
significant fact that while many country regions are
practically shot clean of animal life, sometimes even
to songbirds, the parks and other public properties
in cities often support this wild life in abundance.
Usually it is easier to study squirrels and many
kinds of birds in the city parks than in their native
wilds. To this awakening interest in the preserva-
tion of animals is now added the desire to preserve
the wild flowers. The future will see the wild
animals and plants safely ensconced in those areas
that lie beyond the reach of cultivated fields ; and
these things will be the heritage of the people, not
of the hunter and collector alone.

This desire to protect and preserve our native
animals is well expressed in President Roosevelt's
reference to the subject when discussing the forest
preserves in his first message to Congress : ^' Certain
of the forest reserves should also be made preserves
for the wild forest creatures. All of the reserves
should be better protected from fires. Many of
them need special protection because of the great
injury done by live stock, above all by sheep. The
increase in deer, elk and other animals in the

THE NEW HUNTING 113

Yellowstone Park shows what may be expected
when other mountain forests are properly protected
by law and properly guarded. Some of those areas
have been so denuded of surface vegetation by
overgrazing that the ground-breeding birds, includ-
ing grouse and quail, and many mammals, including
deer, have been exterminated or driven away. . . .
In cases where natural conditions have been re-
stored for a few years, vegetation has again carpeted
the ground, birds and deer are coming back, and
hundreds of persons, especially from the immediate
neighborhood, come each summer to enjoy the
privilege of camping. Some at least of the forest
reserves should afford perpetual protection to the
native fauna and flora, safe havens of refuge to our
rapidly diminishing wild animals of the larger kinds,
and free-camping grounds for the ever-increasing
numbers of men and women who have learned to
find rest, health and recreation in the splendid
forests and flower-clad meadows of our mountains.
The forest reserves should be set apart forever for
the use and benefit of our people as a whole, and
not sacrificed to the short-sighted greed of a few.'*
The enlargement of our sympathies is also well
reflected in the many societies that aim to lessen
cruelty to animals. This movement is an outgrowth
of the rapidly growing feeling of altruism — the
interest in others — which, in the religious sphere,
has ripened into the missionary spirit and into
toleration. The prevention of cruelty to animals is
of more consequence to man than to the animals.
They suffer less than we. Perhaps the movement

114 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

is in danger here and there of degenerating into
mere sentimentalism ; but, on the whole, it is sane
and potent, because it measures our increasing
sensitiveness.

Hunting to kill is not necessarily cruel. The
best hunting is that which kills quickly. The
poorest — for both the hunted and the hunter — is
that which prolongs the struggle. The "gamey"
fish is the one most liked by anglers. The ^^ sport"
of catching him depends on his desperate struggle
for life; and this struggle is often prolonged that
the excitement may be greater! Nature herself
could be indicted for cruelty were not her practices
dictated by inevitable conditions ; but this fact does
not release man, who acts largely as a moral agent.
In nature, many animals meet violent or tragic
deaths. The bird of passage that cannot keep up
with its fellows is caught by the hawk or owl. The
weaklings and the stragglers are taken. Raise the
curtain of night and behold the tragedies. Where
are the graves of the unfit?

The practices of any age are but the expressions
of the needs and motives of that age. Much of the
hunting is dictated by the desire of profits in money,
and these profits often depend on fashion. Mere
fashion has been the cause of the practical exter-
mination of species of birds ; but public opinion was
finally aroused to check it. The demand for furs
is leading to similar results. Many other species
naturally perish before the continued onslaught of
civilization, by means of which the native haunts
are destroyed. We must protect that which we

THE NEW HUNTING 115

need to grow for our own use. It is inevitable that
the animal creation, as a whole, shall recede as the
earth is subdued to man. But too often this creation
has fallen long before its time — fallen as a result of
unnecessary killing.

All the foregoing remarks are meant to illustrate
what I believe to be an enlarging vision respecting
our own place in the world. The point of view is
shifting. The spiritual factors have increasingly
more influence in shaping the course of our evolution.
The emancipation of which I have spoken — the
release from the necessity of taking life — will come,
if at all, as a result of our enlarging spiritual outlook
rather than as a result of agitations concerned with
questions of diet or with any mere propaganda. It
is said, on the other hand, that the conformation of
man's teeth shows that a flesh diet is necessary, but
this only indicates what our evolution has been, not
what it will be. The evolution will come slowly,
but whatever it may be, we have reason to believe
that our points of contact with the nature-world
will strengthen and multiply.

VI

THE POETIC INTERPRETATION OF NATURE

Merrily swinging on brier and weed,

Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name :
Bob-o'-Hnk, bob-o'-Hnk,
Spink, spank, spink;
Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers.

Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln is gaily drest.

Wearing a bright black wedding-coat ;
White are his shoulders and white his crest.
Hear him call in his merry note :
Bob-o'-Hnk, bob-o'-Hnk,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Look what a nice new coat is mine,
Sure there was never a bird so fine.

Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife.

Pretty and quiet with plain brown wings,

Passing at home a patient life.

Broods in the grass while her husband sings :

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INTERPRETATION OF NATURE 117

Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink;
Brood, kind creature ; you need not fear
Thieves and robbers while I am here.

Chee, chee, chee.

Modest and shy as a nun is she ;

One weak chirp is her only note.
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he,
Pouring boasts from his httle throat :
Bob-o'-Hnk, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Never was I afraid of man ;
Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can!

Chee, chee, chee.

Six white eggs on a bed of hay.

Flecked with purple, a pretty sight 1
There as the mother sits all day,

Robert is singing with all his might:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Nice good wife, that never goes out,
Keeping house while I frolic about.

Chee, chee, chee.

Soon as the Httle ones chip the shell.
Six wide mouths are open for food ;

Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well.
Gathering seeds for the hungry brood.

ii8 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink;
This new life is likely to be
Hard for a gay young fellow like me.

Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln at length is made

Sober with work, and silent with care ;
Off is his holiday garment laid,
Half forgotten that merry air:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Nobody knows but my mate and I
Wheie our nest and our nestlings lie.

Chee, chee, chee.

Summer wanes ; the children are grown ;

Fun and frolic no more he knows ;
Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone ;
Off he flies, and we sing as he goes :
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
When you can pipe that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln, come back again.

Chee, chee, chee.

From Complete Works of William Cullen Bryant.
Published by D. Appleton & Co.

This was the exercise that the children were
having as I visited the school on a June morning.
It was the new old song by which Bryant is

INTERPRETATION OF NATURE 119

remembered of the country boy and girl. The
children had seen and studied the bobolink. They
had heard the liquid rattle of his song. They had
seen the nest in the grass. They had watched for
the Quaker wife. They had seen the purple-flecked
eggs. They knew that Robert of Lincoln would
soon leave them. The poem touched their hearts,
and they knew the bobolink better.

With enthusiasm I related the experience to my
friend, the teacher of natural history in the college.
He checked my ardor. He saw only danger in
such teaching. It tends to looseness of ideas. It
makes the mind discursive. It does not fix and
fasten the attention on the subject-matter. It is
unscientific. The child could learn poetry by the
yard, he said, and yet not know how many toes the
bobolink has, nor the shape and size of its wings.
The pupil gains no comparative knowledge of bird
with bird. The poem is untrue. The bobolink is
not ^^ drest '^ : he has no clothes. He has no wife :
he is mated, not wed.

I could only reply that the bobolink's toes have
little relation to men's lives, however much they
may have to bobolinks' lives ; but the bobolink may
mean much to men's lives. To a man studying
ornithology— and I wish there were more— the toes
are important ; but these men are desirous of
technical information, whereas I am seeking a fresh
and firmer hold on life. To be sure, I should
study the bobolink before I studied the poem ; but
I should want a real bobolink, not a stufTed
specimen. If I were obliged to choose between

I20 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

lessons on stuffed bobolinks and the poem, I should
take the poem : there is more bobolink in it.

I like Bryant's lyric because it catches so much
of the life of a bobolink. A scientific description
could tell the story better, but only ornithologists
read scientific descriptions. Yet I have always
wished that the poet had told the whole story.
The poem tells us of the life of the bobolink ; but
after the breeding season is past, the birds gather
in flocks in the rice-fields and reeds of the South
and are then known as rice-birds and reed-birds.
In great numbers they are slaughtered for the
market, and thereby the bobolink does not become
an abundant species in the North. May we not add :

Far in the South he gathers his clans,

Nor thinks of the regions of ice ;
Too early yet for housekeeping plans.
He rev'ls and gluttons in fields of rice.
Rice-bird, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Hunter is waiting under the bloom,
Robert of Lincoln falls to his doom.

Chee, chee, chee.

Spring comes : swinging on brier and weed,

Near to the nest of his little dame.
Over the mountain-side and mead.

Another proud groom is telling his name :
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
The meadow belongs to wife and me —
Life is as happy as life can be.

Chee, chee, chee.

INTERPRETATION OF NATURE 121

This is the age of fact, and we are proud of it.
But it may be also the age of the imagination.
Fact is not to be worshiped. The Hfe that is
devoid of imagination is dead ; it is tied to the
earth. There need be no divorce of fact and
fancy ; they are only the poles of experience.
What is called the scientific method is only
imagination trained and set within bounds. Com-
pared with the whole mass of scientific attainment,
mere fact is but a minor part, after all. Facts are
bridged by imagination. They are tied together
by the thread of speculation. The very essence of
science is to reason from the known to the
unknown.

There can be no objection to the poetic inter-
pretation of nature. It is essential only that the
observation be correct and the inference reasonable,
and that we allow it only at proper times. In
teaching science we may confine ourselves to
scientific formulas, but in teaching nature we may
admit the spirit as well as the letter. If I were
making a teacher's curriculum for the study of
nature, I should include a course in English poetry.
With pupils, however, one must be careful to have
the poem exactly appropriate to the subject and
the occasion. One may not make a list of poems
that are always to be used by teachers of nature-
study for specified topics. The choice of the poem
should lie with the particular teacher or the pupils.
These poems should be used sparingly, and not at
all when the teacher himself does not have
poetic feeling by means of which to interpret

122 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

them. Better no poems whatever than to have
manufactured sentiment.

In our day of science people seem to be afraid
of sentiment. The scientist forbids us to personify ;
and this is well. But this spirit may be carried so
far as to forbid figures of speech and to condemn
parables. Speech cannot be literally accurate.
Even astronomers say that the sun sets, but we
know that it does not. The trouble with much of
the sentiment is that it gives us a wrong point of
view. To say that a potato-plant works all the
season in order to provide for its offspring the next
year is said to give a wrong conception of the plant
because it implies motive. But does this picture
mislead any one ? Everybody knows that a potato-
plant has no brains. Everybody knows that the
statement conveys a truth. Under certain conditions
I believe that it is perfectly justifiable. If it is not,
then I may not say that a potato has eyes. Much
of the objection to statements of this kind is mere
quibbling. But, on the other hand, all such
allegories must be true in spirit and in their
teaching. Much of the current writing of plants
and animals, by which human motives are implied,
is productive of harm ; but we should distinguish
between metaphor, or mere literary license, and an
untrue point of view. The ultimate test is whether
the reader is lead to believe what is not true. An
animal or a plant may be represented as telling its
own story without misleading any one, even as a
character in a novel may speak in the first person ;
we need not imply human motives or human

INTERPRETATION OF NATURE 123

points of view in these cases : there remain only
the questions as to whether this is really good
literary taste, and whether it is the most efficient
way to reach the audience for which it is intended.
In general, a direct and lucid presentation, without
circumlocution, is to be preferred ; and this direct
method allows of the full expression of sentiment
and the poetic impulse.

I protest against that teaching of nature which
is mere sentimentalism, which makes the "goody-
goody'^ part of the work so prominent that it
becomes the child's point of view. Interest in
things themselves should be the primary motive ;
sentiment comes chiefly as a result. But if there
is danger of making sentiment too prominent, there
may be equal danger in insisting on a perfunctory
scientific point of view.

The spirit of science lends itself well to song.
The concrete is not unpoetic. If in this day we
apostrophize and personify nature less, we have
improved in the spirit and intimacy of our song.
The point of view gradually has shifted from
human interest in natural things to the things
themselves.

VII

AN OUTLOOK ON WINTER

In the bottom of the valley is a brook that saun-
ters between oozing banks. It falls over stones and
dips under fences. It marks an open place on the
face of the earth, and the trees and soft herbs bend
their branches into the sunlight. The hang-bird
swings her nest over it. Mossy logs are crumbling
into it. There are still pools where the minnows
play. The brook runs away and away into the
forest. As a boy I explored it but never found its
source. It came somewhere from the Beyond and
its name was Mystery.

The mystery of this brook was its changing

moods. It had its own way of recording the passing

of the weeks and months. I remember never to

have seen it twice in the same mood, nor to have

got the same lesson from it on two successive days ;

yet, with all its variety, it always left that same

feeling of mystery and that same vague longing to

follow to its source and to know the great world

that I was sure must lie beyond. I felt that the

brook was greater and wiser than I. It became my

teacher. I wondered how it knew when March

came, and why its round of life recurred so

regularly with the returning seasons. I remember

that I was anxious for the spring to come, that I

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AN OUTLOOK ON WINTER 125

might see it again. I longed for the earthy smell
when the snow settled away and left bare brown
margins along its banks. I watched for the suckers
that came up from the river to spawn. I made a
note when the first frog peeped. I waited for the
unfolding spray to soften the bare trunks. I
watched the greening of the banks and looked
eagerly for the bluebird when I heard his curling
note somewhere high in the air.

Yet, with all my familiarity with this brook, I did
not know it in the winter. Its pathway up into the
winter woods was as unexplored as the arctic
regions. Somehow, it was not a brook in the
winter time. It was merely a dreary waste, as cold
and as forbidding as death. The winter was only
a season of waiting, and spring was always late.

Many years have come and gone since then. My
affection for the brook gave way to a study of plants
and animals and stones. For years I was absorbed
in phenomena. But now mere phenomena and
things have slipped into a secondary place, and the
old boyhood slowly reasserts itself. I am sure that
I know the brook the better because I know more
about the things that live in its little world ; yet
that same mystery pervades it and there is that same
longing for the things that lie beyond. I remember
that in the old days I did not mind the rain and
the sleet when visiting the brook. I was not
conscious that they were not a part of the brook
itself. It was only when I began to dress up that
the rain annoyed me. I must make a proper
appearance before the world. From that time, the

126 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

brook and I grew further apart. We are coming
together again now. It is no misdemeanor to get
wet if you feel that you are not spoiling your clothing.
One's happiness is largely a question of clothes.

But the brook is one degree the better now just
because it remains a brook all winter. The winter
is the best season of the four because there is more
mystery in it. Things are hidden ; yet there is a
new and strange spirit in the air. There are strange
bird-calls in the depths of the still, white woods.
There are strange marks in the new-fallen snow.
There are soft noises when the snow drops from the
trees. There are grotesque figures on the old
fence. There is the warm brown pathway of the
brook still winding up between oozing banks. In
the spring there are troops of flower-gatherers along
the brook. In the summer there are fishers at the
deep pools. In the fall there are nut-gatherers and
aimless wanderers. In the winter the brook and I
are alone. We know.

Most of us, I fear, look upon winter with some
feeling of dread and apprehension. It is to be
endured. This feeling is partly due to the immense
change that comes with the approach of winter.
The trees are bare. The leaves are drifting into
the fence-rows. The birds have flown. The
deserted country roads stretch away into leaden
skies. The lines of the landscape become hard
and sharp. Gusty winds scurry over the fields. It
is the turn of the year.

To many persons, however, the dread of winter,
or the lack of enjoyment in it, is a question of

AN OUTLOOK ON WINTER 127

weather. We speak of bad weather, as if weather
ever could be bad. Weather is not a human
institution, and is not to be measured by human
standards. There is strength and mighty upHft in
the roaring winds that go roistering over the winter
hills. The cold and the storm are a part of winter,
as the warmth and the soft rain are a part of
summer. Persons who find happiness in the out-
of-doors only in what we call pleasant weather, do
not really love nature.

We speak of winter as bare, but this is only a
contrast with summer. In the summer all things
are familiar and close; the depths are covered.
The view is restricted. We see things near by. In
the winter things are uncovered. Old objects have
new forms. There are new curves in the roadway
through the forest. There are steeper undulations
in the footpath. Even when the snow lies deep on
the earth the ground-line carries the eye into
strange distances. You look far down 'into the
heart of the woods. You feel the strength and
resoluteness of the framework of the trees. You
see the corners and angles of the rocks. You
discover the trail that was lost in the summer.
You look clear through the weedy tangle. You
find new knot-holes in the tree-trunks. You pene-
trate to the very depths. You analyze, and gain

insight.

Many times in warm countries I have been told
that the climate has transcendent merit because
there is no winter. But to me this lack is its
disadvantage. There are things to see, things to

128 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

do, things to think about in the winter as in the
spring. There is interest in the winter wayside, in
the hibernating insects, in the fret-work of the
weeds against the snow, in the strong outHnes of
the trees, in the snow-shapes, in the cold deep sky.
To many persons these strong alternations of the
seasons emphasize and punctuate the life. They
are the mountains and the valleys. The winter
makes the spring worth while.

The lesson is that our interest in the out-of-doors
should be a perennial current that overflows from
the fountain that lies deep within us. This interest
is colored and modified by every passing season,
but fundamentally it is beyond time and place.
Winter or no winter, it matters not : the fields lie
beyond.

PART III

INQUIRIES

SOME PRACTICAL INQUIRIES AND SOME WAYS
OF ANSWERING THEM

Practical problems confront the teacher.
However well he may understand the theory and
however fully he may agree with it, a new diffi-
culty arises every time that he attempts to teach.
A child will ask a question that a philosopher
cannot answer ; but on every question the teacher
must have a point of view. I frequently speak to
teachers on means of teaching nature-study. For
the time they are pupils and they ask questions :
I am obliged to take a point of view, and some of
these opinions I have jotted down at the time.
Some of them are here reprinted, not because
they may be correct, but because they may be
suggestive.

How shall I know what subjects to choose F
Let the children select the subject now and
then. Let them choose and collect the specimens.
But they may bring things of which the teacher
knows nothing. So much the better! These are
sometimes best for nature-study. They leave the
largest interrogation point. From any subject the
teacher can develop a fact. If he does not know
the interpretation, say so ; the pupils will be the
more interested. The teacher will not lose stand-

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132 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

ing by the confession, for he is honest. People
lose standing by pretending to know what they do
not know and by being caught at it. The child is
relieved to know that there is something yet to
be discovered. Verily, the subjects of which the
teacher does not know are useful in the teaching;
and then, they are so common !

But if the child choose the material^ the subject will
lack continuity: what then F

Nature is not consecutive except in her periods.
She puts things together in a mosaic. She has a
brook and plants and toads and bugs and the
weather all together. Because we have put the
plants in one book, the brooks in another, and
the bugs in another, we have come to think that
this divorce is the logical and necessary order.
I wonder I

Then would you give no heed to continuity F

How much or how little continuity will depend
on the teacher and the circumstance. With
children, the temptation is to have too much
rather than too little continuity. First of all, we
must develop the child's experience. The higher
the grade, the more the topics may be correlated
and coordinated. I doubt whether a closely graded
nature-study is really nature-study at all. For
children, I believe in that continuity and consecu-
tiveness which relate the subject to its place and
season. In April, correlate the work with the
opening of the spring; in October, with the
coming of winter. Compare the nature-study of
June with that of May. With living things,

INQUIRIES i->^

the cycle of the year is the fundamental
continuity.

How shall I make a start F

Persons hesitate, fearing that they will make a
mistake. A teacher asked me the other day where
he should begin with nature work. He had been
considering the matter for two or three years, he
said, but did not know how to undertake it. I
replied. Begin! Head end, tail end, in the middle

— but Begin I There are two essential epochs in
any enterprise — to begin, and to get done.

For the first lesson, choose the natural object
that you know most about. Every teacher has
sufficient knowledge of one subject to afford one
good nature-study lesson. The second lesson will
take care of itself.

If you are thinking of starting ofT a movement
in all the schools in a city or a commissioner's
district or in a county, first choose your teachers.
Choose those that have enthusiasm and ''good
spirit'' and that are not tied hand and foot to
customary methods. Choose the fearless teachers

— the ones that are anxious to arouse the pupils
even though they do not do it by the book. Then
give these teachers one good lesson yourself. Or,
if you cannot give the lesson, put in their hands
one good nature-study leaflet. Choose the leaflet
as you would a teacher — for cheery outlook,
energy, and directness of expression. Choose a
leaflet that sends the teacher directly to nature;
you do not want stories. Choose the leaflet that
has snap and spirit, not mere information. It

134

THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

should be attractive in subject-matter and in
mechanical execution. Never put a cheaply illus-
trated and poorly printed leaflet before a pupil.
Remember that children are optimists, and that
they want the best in both teacher and leaflet.
Let the teachers study the object and the leaflet
until the subject is mastered. When the teacher
is full of the subject, he cannot help teaching.

If you are fortunate enough to have the starting
of a nature-study movement for a State or other
large territory, buy a small quantity of one of the
best leaflets you can find. If you do not have the
money, borrow it. Send a note to the newspapers
to the effect that any teachers who wish to take up
nature-study work may write you for literature and
advice. All the rest will work itself out. Money
will come from some source. Soon you will be
publishing leaflets of your own; but be careful
who writes them.

Beware of putting your trust in leaflets alone.
Follow them up with correspondence and other
personal work. The leaflet will not work of it-
self. It will soon be forgotten unless you keep
the spirit and the enthusiasm alive. Organize your
teachers and your children. Keep at it.

Is not subject-matter the first consideration ?

Perhaps. Subject-matter is important, but the
teaching faculty is equally so. Has it ever oc-
curred to you that many of the most useful school
text-books are made by persons who are not
most proficient in the subject-matter? It were
better if the books were better ; but good or bad, they

INQUIRIES 135

are useful because they are practicable and usable.
The successful text-book is successful because the
author knew the teacher and the pupil. Where
is the person who knows equally well the subject-
matter, the teacher, and the pupil?

Subject-matter and enthusiasm are all-important
and coordinate. They are to be obtained at the
same time. But the importance of subject-matter
is often misunderstood. It is not necessary that
one have a wide range of knowledge, but rather
that he should know one thing or a few things
thoroughly, so far as he goes. It may not be
necessary to go deep, but it is important to do well
as far as we go.

Would you teach heatj light and physics as nature-
study topics?

No, not as these subjects are ordinarily taught.
They are usually taught as abstractions, having
little relation to the pupil's life. There are many
phenomena in these fields that are within the
range of the pupil's experience, and these may be
useful in the hands of a good teacher. The best
results will be secured, in the hands of most
teachers, by confining nature-study rather closely
to biological fields and to those earth-objects that
are most intimately associated, in the child's mind,
with the fields. I would not exclude the other
topics; but I once knew a teacher who began
nature-study for children with a disquisition on
the conservation of energy !

Would you teach '' practical'' and '' useful'' things?

Yes, if the things are such as appeal to the child

136 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

and are adapted to the conditions. No, if they do
not meet these requirements. In other words, I
should not choose them merely because they are
*^ practical" or ^'useful to man." I should want
the child to have a wider horizon and a truer view
of nature. The prime requisite is that the child
become interested in the being itself, whether that
being chance to be '^injurious" or "beneficial."
Many of the "useful" and "harmful" things are
eminently adapted to nature-study work, however,
from the fact that they are common ; but we must
be careful not to dwarf the sympathies by purposely
confiningour work to those things that have "use. "

Would you teach objects that the child cannot see
and determine for itself ?

No ! Right here is where much of our nature-
study effort shoots wide of the mark. The child
should be set at those things that are within its own
sphere and within the range of its powers. Much
so-called nature-study teaching is merely telling
the child what some man has found out. Bacteria,
sheep's brains, life-histories of difficult insects,
chemical changes in germination, pollination,
yeast, fermentation — these and a hundred others
are beyond the child's realm.

How much apparatus do I need?

Perhaps none; possibly some. The apparatus
and the teaching may easily be made too perfect.
Any elaborate scheme or equipment is likely to
be depressing to those who are less fortunately
situated. A laboratory in a teacher's training-
school may be so extensive and complete that the

INQUIRIES 137

graduates do not take up efficient work for them-
selves, feeling that they cannot do so witliout
much equipment. Make the most of common
and simple subjects in nature-study. Leave the
extensive outfits to teachers of science. The two
pieces of apparatus that you most need are an
aquarium for things thatlive in water and a terrarlum
for those that live on land. These become
** scenes of life '' and supplement the outdoors.

Is it'' thorough'' F

''\ do not believe in your nature-study move-
ment," a high school teacher said, "for It does
not lead to thoroughness in school work.'* I
asked her to explain what she meant by thorough-
ness. She took me to her schoolroom. It was a
laboratory. Pupils of sixteen and seventeen were
studying the cell. For three weeks the pupils had
been working on the cell, and they were to con-
tinue the work for a month. This, she told me,
was thoroughness. I agreed with her. "But of
what value is this knowledge to the pupil?" I asked.
"The pupil knows the cell," she replied, "and
to know the cell is to understand the structure
and growth of the plant."

I, too, '^believe in thoroughness, but there is
one thoroughness of mere details and another
thoroughness of the broader view. So far as
mere thoroughness is concerned, one kind may be
as perfect as the other. Thoroughness consists only
in seeing something accurately and understanding
what it means. We can never know all that there
is to be learned about any object. Even the

138 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

months' work on the cell was a mere smattering.
Men spend their lives in studying the cell, and
then do not understand it. What most school-
teachers mean by thoroughness is only drill in
details. In its proper time and place, I believe in
this kind of drill in mere detail, but its place is
not with youngsters.

But the great objection to my teacher's work
on the cell, as I see it, is the fact that it means
little or nothing to the pupil's life and is a mere
acquirement. I have little sympathy with what is
known as '^practical" knowledge as a means of
training youth — for that spirit which would teach
only those things that can be turned into direct
use in money-getting; but I would put the child
in contact with its own life, and the teacher who
does this teaches with thoroughness whether he
teach much or little.

But will not this nature-study be called superficial ?

No doubt. A botanist told me that I was doing
superficial work. Judged from the view-point of
science-teaching, he was right ; but I was not
teaching science. Judged from the view-point of
the child, I hope he was wrong. One is not
superficial merely because he does not delve deep
into subject-matter. He should try to be accurate
so far as he goes. What is superficiality in the
specialist may be commendable thoroughness in the
layman. Even the specialist is satisfied with the
most superficial knowledge in subjects outside his
specialty. It is notorious that his knowledge of
men and of business, for example, is superficial.

INQUIRIES 139

This charge of superficiality Is usually only the
opinion of a different point of view. This Is well
illustrated in the critical reviews of elementary
text-books of science. Books that have been
criticized severely by the scientist have been
accepted with enthusiasm by the schoolmaster.
The primary merit of a school-book lies in its
pedagogy rather than in its science. Statements
in such books have two values — the teaching value
and the science value. Too often the reviewer
thinks only of the science value.

Of course there is danger of superficiality.
There is this danger in everything; but the danger
is inherent in the person, not in the subject. SoHd
work is as necessary in nature-study as in anything
else. It is not play. Professor E. B. TIchener
writes as follows of what he considers to be the
three dangers in nature-study: ^'The first is that,
in striving for sympathy with nature, we run Into
sentimentality. The second is that, in avoiding
fairy tales, we run into something ten times worse
— if indeed fairy tales are bad at all ; I mean a
pseudo-psychology of the lower animals. And the
third is that, in trying to be exceedingly simple, we
become exceedingly inaccurate.''

^ut do you think that this nature-study will make
investigators ?

That depends on what you mean by an investi-
gator. If you mean an inquirer, then I say that
nature-study will develop the trait to perfection.
If you mean one who shall discover and record new
truth by means of painstaking investigation, then I

I40 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

answer that nature-study will not detract from such
attainment. Neither does it lead directly to that
end, and this is its merit. To be an investigator is
to be a professionalist or specialist ; and profession-
alists should be developed late in the school life
from the few who show talent in that direction.
Nature-study is for every one, and therefore is
fundamental ; scientific investigation is for the few,
and therefore is special. If nature-study opens the
sympathies natureward, it will also increase the
appreciation of science. Too much are our college
students taught to make their reputations as
investigators. In fact, the student who goes to
college or university to study usually thinks only or
mostly of investigation — of his science. I wonder
whether a science is not worth acquiring as a
specialty for the sake of teaching it? May not
reputations be made as high-class teachers of ento-
mology or botany, even without ever publishing a
bit of technical research? It would be better if
the teacher were also the investigator, but there
are few persons who can make happy union of the
two ideals.

Will not this nature-study tend still further to over-
burden the school P

The overburdening of the school hours is due as
much to the fact that the old subjects do not give
way as that new ones are introduced. The old
schools had too little variety. Perhaps the new
ones have too much congestion. Just now we are
in an intermediate stage between the old and the
new. Nature-study is not a new subject clamoring

INQUIRIES 141

for a place: it is a rational and natural point of
view asserting itself. Its spirit will eventually
pervade and vitalize all school work. It is some
comfort to know that our school hours are now
full. They cannot be fuller. If other things are
added, old subjects must drop out. It is a struggle
for existence. By introducing spontaneity and
personal enthusiasm, nature-study should relieve
the congestion rather than increase it. If nature-
study becomes a burden, it is likely to be because
the teacher tries to teach too much and makes too
hard work of it.

Shall we teach the child to collect^ and thereby to
kill ?

How much or how little the collecting habit
shall be encouraged must be determined for each
case by itself ; but, in general, the child should be
taught to respect the life of every creature.
Collecting should be a mere incident, particularly
with very young children, and it should be encour-
aged only when it has some definite purpose. The
wanton spirit always must be suppressed. I do not
like to encourage young children to '' catch things"
for the mere excitement of catching them. Study
the habits of things as they are. I have little
sympathy with the development of mere senti-
mentalism regarding the life of animals and plants;
but it is a safe principle, with children, to let
everything live its own life. Discourage the spirit
of the hunter.

Would you tell the child the names of the thin^sF

Certainly, the same as I would tell him the name

142 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

of a new boy or girl. But I should not stop with
the name. Nature-study does not ask finally *^ What
is the thing ? " but ^ ^ How does the thing live ? ' ' or
"What does it do ? " or ^' How did it get here ? "
or '^ What can I do with it ? " The name is only a
part of the language that enables us to talk about
the object. Tell the name at the outset and have
the matter done with. Then go on to vital
questions.

Would you begin by first reading to the child about

nature ?

No, not in the school as a part of nature-study
work. The reading should come after, not before.
Order will gradually come out of experience.
The child should first come in contact with things
rather than with ideas about things. This is the
natural order. Animals come before zoology,
plants before botany, fields and rocks before
geology, words before language, religion before
theology. Experience should come before theory.

Now that there are so many nature-books^ how shall
I choose the most useful one ?

Only by finding out what you want. The multi-
tude of books may be confusing, but the greater
the number the greater is the chance that you will
find one to your liking. Some persons deplore
the making of many books, because they then
have more difficulty in choosing; but the time has
already passed when one book, or even two, can
satisfy a good teacher. The teacher may not be
able to purchase several books, but the school
should supply a reasonable number. In these days

INQUIRIES 143

the library is part of the equipment of the school.
There is a general feeling that a new book— par-
ticularly a new school-book — is made for the
purpose of displacing some other book. I once
wrote a book. It seemed to occupy a field for
which one of my best friends also had written.
This friend wrote that perhaps I was right and he
was wrong. I replied that I hoped I was right,
but that this did not imply that he was wrong. I
hope that we are both right. There is more than
one point of view. Teachers sometimes deplore
the number of text-books. As a matter of fact,
we need more rather than fewer; thereby is there
greater likelihood that every teacher can find a
book to his liking. I do not believe that we
should have uniform methods of teaching any
subject in all parts of the country. When one
text-book satisfies everybody, it is because every-
body is uncritical and unpersonal.

How shall I acquire sufficient knowledge to enable
me to teach nature-study F

In the same way that you acquire other knowl-
edge— by means of work and study. There is no
way by which you can dream it or absorb it.
There is no excellence without labor. The teacher
should know more than he attempts to teach.

Yet, you must not magnify the importance of
mere knowledge. The ambition to teach and the
love of doing for a child are the fundamental
requisites. My own love of nature was given
direction and purpose by a teacher who knew very
little about nature ; but she knew how to touch a

144 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

boy's heart. Fill yourself full of some subject,
however small it may be. When you cannot hold
it longer, teach. Yes, you may make mistakes.
But every one makes mistakes, even with the best
of pains. Every person who, by teaching or writ-
ing, has helped the world to a higher plane, has
said or written errors. Our books contain them.
Every person, and particularly every teacher,
should make all effort to be accurate ; but if we
wait till every possibility of error is removed, the
world's work will never be done. Many a man
sacrifices his chances of usefulness for fear of
making a mistake. Many investigators are so
intent on the accuracy of mere details that they
overlook the value of enthusiasm and point of
view.

The best way to get the knowledge is to work
for a time with a good teacher ; but be sure that
this teacher has enthusiasm and human sympathy
as well as knowledge. Read books and leaflets.
Above all, go into the fields and study the objects
themselves. Do not wait until you are thoroughly
equipped before you begin to teach, else you will
never begin. When you have begun and your
pupils begin to press for answers, you will learn.
When you discover that you have made an error,
admit it and acknowledge it. The pupil will
respect you. Honesty always wins respect.

It is not necessary that you become a scientist
in order to teach nature-study. You simply go
as far as you know, and then say to the pupil that
you cannot answer the questions which you can-

INQUIRIES 145

not. This at once elevates you In the pupil's
estimation, for the pupil is convinced of your truth-
fulness, and is made to feel — but how seldom is the
sensation! — that knowledge is not the pccuhar
property of the teacher, but is the right of any one
who seeks it. It sets the pupil investigating for
himself. The teacher never needs to apologize
for nature. He is teaching simply because he Is
an older and more experienced pupil than his
pupil is. This is the spirit of the teacher in the
colleges and universities to-day. The best teacher
is the one whose pupils the furthest outrun him.

Is it best to have a professional nature-study teacher
to go from school to school F

This is a local and administrative problem.
Ideally, it is best that every teacher handle the
nature-study, because nature-study is not merely
another subject, but it is a spirit and an attitude, and
its effect is greatest when it is most continuous. In
practice, however, some teachers will be sure to
develop special aptitudes for the work, and these
persons should be retained for this particular effort.
The best talent should be employed for nature-
study, as for anything else.

Should the parts of a school-garden be apportioned
to pupils^ or should the work be done in common F

In practice this becomes largely a question of
administration : sometimes one thing can be done
and sometimes the other. Ideally, the parts should
be apportioned in the real laboratory school-
garden. Thereby is the sense of proprietorship
cultivated and the stimulus of emulation aroused.

146 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

It is always advisable, when it can be arranged, to
provide for some culmination or focus of the
season's work in the nature of a flower-show or
vegetable-show ; or, the children may be allowed
to sell the products of their gardens or to give
them to hospitals or other worthy objects. This
individuality of interest can be easily maintained in
the plot-garden, but it is more difficult in the
ornamental garden in which the plants are grown
in continuous borders.

In order to indicate how some of the questions
are attacked by those who are engaged in the
work, I reprint an article on the Whittier School-
Garden, by Miss Jean E. Davis, that appeared
recently in Country Life in America :

**What is believed to be the largest school-
garden in the United States is to be found in
Virginia at the Hampton Institute for Negro and
Indian youth, where it forms part of the equipment
of the Whittier Training School— the practice-
school of the institution. Two acres of ground
are given up to the garden, the larger part being
divided into two hundred individual plots, varying
in size from four by six feet for the pickaninnies of
the kindergarten, to eleven by fifteen feet for the old-
est boys and girls. Each plot is owned, for the time
being, by two children, who enter into partner-
ship and share equally in the work as well as in the
profits of the garden — spading, raking, planting,
hoeing, harvesting with their own hands, and using
the products in their own homes or selling them to
their neighbors. The young farmers are not given

INQUIRIES 147

carte blanche, however, in regard to the kind of
crops they shall raise or their position in the beds.
The supervision of the w^ork is in the hands of one
person— the director of the agricultural department
of the Institute— who decides what vegetables and
flowers shall be planted and how they shall be
arranged. This plan serves to give symmetry and
order to the garden as a whole, and adds materially
to the educative value of the work. Most of the
plants selected are such as are easily cultivated and
such as mature rapidly, Hke lettuce, radishes,
nasturtiums and marigolds; though peas, beans,
cabbage, spinach and tomatoes are also cultivated.
The gardens are made and planted both in the fall
and in the spring, the crops sown in spring being
cared for during the long summer vacation by
volunteers.

"The beds are separated from each other by
paths one foot wide, and are arranged for the
different classes in sections, having two-foot paths
between them. Extra plots, six feet wide, extending
the full length of each section, are used for overflow
work by pupils who are exceptionally quick and
energetic. Strawberries and raspberries are
sometimes permitted in these beds. Another
opportunity for work out of the usual routine is
afforded by a space of three-quarters of an acre
which is reserved at the rear of the garden for the
purpose of teaching the larger boys how to use a
horse and plow. In order that the esthetic side of
gardening may not be neglected — the cultivation of
a sense of beauty being esteemed of equal impor-

148 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

tance with practical instruction in agriculture — a
large lawn has been placed at the entrance, while
border beds of ornamental flowers form the other
boundaries.

** But if school-gardening were confined to the
making of gardens, the planting of seeds and the
cultivation of crops, beneficial as these experiences
might be, it would still fall far short of accom-
plishing the end desired in introducing this subject
into school courses. It would soon degenerate into
either play or drudgery. To give it dignity and
interest, and to make it of practical value in later
life, the gardening is supplemented or preceded by
simple experiments in the class-room illustrating
the principles of germination and plant-growth ;
and a study is made of seed dispersion, the
comparative value of soils and the work of beneficial
and injurious insects. Seeds are planted in window-
boxes, the seedlings affording material for language
and drawing lessons before being transplanted into
the outdoor beds. The decorative value of flowers,
leaves and berries is considered, and the children
are encouraged to make gardens at their homes
from which they may gather bouquets of flowers
for their dinner-tables.

'^ The results of two years' experience in teaching
gardening and nature-study at the Whittier School
are most gratifying. While at first it was necessary
to use compulsion with some of the older girls, and
the little ones merely considered anything ' good
fun ' that took them out of doors, they now without
exception look forward with eager enthusiasm to

INQUIRIES 149

* gardening day/ which comes twice a week to each
of the four hundred. Large crops have been
gathered and proudly carried home ; seeds have
been in demand for home gardens, sixty or more
of which have been made in the neighborhood ;
and last spring children to the number of one
hundred and thirty volunteered to cultivate the
gardens during the summer vacation. In the home-
gardens there has been great diversity of crops.
Besides the usual school plants, children have
raised wheat, corn, pumpkins, sweet and Irish
potatoes, and also many kinds of flowers. A
wholesome rivalry has sprung up between the
owners of adjoining beds in the school-garden, and
pride in the appearance of the school-grounds has
been stimulated. An interest in birds and insects,
and an appreciation of the beauty of wayside
flowers and other common things, have been
developed ; and the roughest children have been
made more gentle by handling the beautiful
flowers that they have grown, the result of their
own care and patience. A regard for the property
and rights of others is among the results of this
cooperative gardening, also an appreciation of the
advantages of working together, and a certain
forbearance and loyalty to one's partner, all of
which are lessons of inestimable value, especially
to colored children. When we add to these
unconscious influences of school-gardening the
conscious self-respect and self-reliance that come
from the abihty to produce from the soil something
of one's very own, it will be admitted that this sub-

I50 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

ject is worthy of an honorable place in the course
of study of our common schools, of which the
Whittier School is only a type/'

Why should this nature-study be confined to the
schools ?

It should not be confined to schools. Too often
it is so limited because we are in the habit of
delegating the training of our children to a
professional class of teachers. The home should
be the most perfect school, and the parents should
be the ideal teachers. In the increasing complica-
tion of our lives, however, the division of labor
forces the children more and more from the
home-training into the school-training; therefore
it is increasingly important that we give good heed
to the maintenance of good schools. But even
yet the home-training should afford an auxiliary to
the school-training. There should be more than
one common bond of method and purpose. One
of these bonds should certainly be the desire to put
the child into sympathetic relation with its own
necessities : this is nature-study, for, to a very great
degree, the child is the creature of its environments.

I believe in the value of education by means of
literature and history and science and art ; but if I
were confined to one means I should choose that
education that would lead me to love the things
that I see and the work that I do day by day. This
outlook I should want to impress on my children ;
but I could not impress it by any mere intellectual
means. It is an affair of the heart ; and if I do not
live it I cannot teach it.

INQUIRIES 151

What shall we do with the children in the summer
vacation ?

This is an exceedingly important question and
very difficult to answer. The teacher has no con-
trol of the child during this period. He can suggest
what the pupil may do, but the probability Is that
the pupil will merely drift.

I am convinced that there is a great loss of
efficiency in the overlong and undirected summer
vacation for both child and youth. The colleges
are beginning to feel this, as shown in the develop-
ment of four-term systems. The summer schools
are protests against an idle summer. Herein is
where the farm boy gets much of his efficiency for
the battle of life—in the fact that he has no long
periods of enforced idleness, laziness and emptiness.
He is kept at work. He grows up with an appre-
ciation of the value of time. He knows what
industry is and what it brings. Steady effort and
application become the warp and woof of his life.
The town boy of the upper and middle class, on
the other hand, is likely to become accomplished
in feats of idleness. One-fourth his time is mere
vacation, or, rather, mere vacancy. He is handi-
capped when later he comes squarely against the
realities of life.

I believe in a long vacation if the time is occupied
in some well-directed effort. I am glad to see the
development of the summer-camp idea for both
boys and girls, where, under competent and
sympathetic guidance, with firm but kindly
discipline and something like Spartan fare, they

152 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

are led to see and to know the nature in which
they are. In such camping-out experiences the
youth comes hard against actuaHties. He gathers
materials that are his own and that become a part
of his capital throughout his life. He comes to
his own conclusions and to think for himself,
not merely to absorb his knowledge and opinions
from teachers and books. In later life he may
never have another opportunity to get this
actual experience.

I wonder how many persons ever saw the sun
rise?

Will not this nature-study work interfere with school
discipline F

That all depends on what you mean by ^* disci-
pline.'' If you mean perfect ^' order," the child
sitting erect with clasped hands, then nature-study
work may annoy you. If you mean only that the
child is well-behaved, obedient and quiet, then no
ill result should come from the nature-study eflfort.
Nature-study should supply some of the '' busy
work'' between the regular periods. Really, the
best means to secure good discipline is to keep the
child busy and interested. ^* Discipline " is then a
mere incident.

The greater number of mischievous and refrac-
tory children can be interested in some piece of
personal work or investigation. The boy who is
*^ licked" at home and punished at school is likely
to spend his time midway between the two; and
yet he may be easy to reach if only he is
understood.

INQUIRIES 153

J

Shall I correlate the nature-study work with other
work ?

This question can be answered only for particular
cases. In general, correlation is an advantage to
all subjects concerned ; however, I fear that In
much of the correlation the nature-study part is
little more than a name. If the nature-study can
be kept genuine — a real study of natural objects at
first hand — I see no danger in correlation. The
correlation usually is of greater benefit to the other
subjects than to nature-study.

Nature-study work can be correlated with various
other school work, notably with essay writing,
drawing and geography teaching. The very first
essential in essay writing is to have something from
one's own experience to say. Assigned topics are
usually "hard" at best. Let the child write of
what it has seen or done that day or yesterday — the
butterfly, the tadpoles in the pond near by, the
plants growing in its garden, the fish in the aquarium,
the peaches on the tree by the barn, the little world
of life in the terrarium, the woodchuck that lives
under the stone fence. If the child has had no such
experience, why not begin by assigning him a
living topic to look up and report on in writing ?

We need to be unusually careful to see that the
writing is not exotic to the child. Avoid the model
of mere nature-study " stories " about things ; these
stories tell what others have found out. They
inform and instruct and entertain, rather than
educate and set the child to work.

We stifle the desire to write if we first lay down

154 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

rules and formulas as to how to write. Let the child
have a personal experience ; then allow it to write.
Did you ever have a pupil who could not write a
composition, but who could write a letter that was
full of originality and personality ? Why could it
write the one and not the other? To often, I fear,
we prevent our children from writing by trying to
make them write. Of what use is writing, anyway,
if it is not self-expressive ? So, let the child
have something real and personal to write about.
No subject is too mean. Then when the child has
written, throw away the blue pencil and suggest
tactfully how the piece may be improved here and
there. Do not hinder the child.

I well remember my first ^* composition. " For
days I had tried to think of a ^'subject.'' I had
importuned father and mother and friends.
"Winter,'' "Spring," " The pen is mightier than
the sword,'' "The pleasures of farm life,"
" Shakespeare"^all had equal terrors. Rapidlythe
days melted away, and to-morrow the composition
must be ready, and yet of all the well-sounding
subjects not one seemed to present a way of escape.
The teacher — God bless her ! — learned of my
pHght. She asked me what was the best " time" I
had had last summer. Of course I knew— the time
when we all went blackberrying, with all of us
rolled into the bottom of the wagon-box that went
bumping and rattling over the stones and grinding
through the sand, when we crept through the deep
cool woods and then came into the "clearing"
where the skidded logs were covered with the

INQUIRIES 155

tangle of berries and berries— of course I knewl
With what wild delight I told her ! and then she
said, ''Just write that down and it will be your
composition." From that day until this I hope I
have written only on those things that are dear to
me.

I have a similar word to say about drawing. The
other day I heard Mrs. Comstock speak on this
subject before a convention of teachers. She is
herself an artist. She said that there are two kinds
of drawing — the kind that is the child's self-
expression, and the kind that makes an artistic
picture. It is natural for every child to make
lines and marks to express what it sees or
experiences ; but when these lines and marks
do not conform to the ideals of grown-ups,
we discourage the eflFort and the child ceases
to draw. Considered as the effort of the child
to express itself, no drawing can be "poor."
Mrs. Comstock put on the board a copy of
a drawing from a child's pad, and it was as
follows :

'* The impression that a man made on the child— face, arms, legs "

156 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

We all laughed ; but we were told that this was no
cancature, but the impression that a man made on
the child— face, arms, legs.

More than words, the drawing may show what
the world means to the child, even allowing for all

What a little girl sain

the error in clumsiness with pencil. Do you not
wonder how the world looks to the little girl in the
second grade who made all these drawings and sent

INQUIRIES 157

them to Uncle John ? Would you not like to take
her on your knee and have her explain them to
you?

Primarily, drawing is a means of expressing
what we see and feel ; now and then a person
develops the ability to make a picture that pleases
others, and he becomes an artist. Primarily, our
interest in the external world is one of sympathy
and personality ; now and then a person develops
the ability to make discoveries and to record them,
and he becomes a scientist.

Correlation of nature-study and drawing should
give excellent results to both subjects. The nature-
study should afiord objects in which the pupil is
genuinely interested ; the drawing should aid in
focusing the observation and making it accurate.
Drawing should be encouraged primarily for the
purpose of discovering what the child really sees.
As the child sees more, and with greater accuracy,
the drawings improve. So the drawings become
an approximate measure of the progress of the
pupil. Do not measure the drawings merely as
drawings, or from the artist's point of view. We
are likely to dwell so much on the mere product of
the child's work that we forget the child.

Too early in the school life do we begin to make
pupils mere artists and literators. First the child
should be encouraged to express himself; then he
may be taught to draw and to compose.

Is nature-study on the wane F

Real nature-study cannot pass away. We arc
children of nature, and we have never appreciated

158 THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

the fact so much as we do now. But the more
closely we come into touch with nature the less
do we publish the fact abroad. We may hear
less about it, but it will be because we are living
nearer to it and have ceased to feel the necessity
of advertising it.

Teaching may not be nature-study merely be-
cause it is so called. A superintendent told me that
he had forbidden nature-study in his schools. I
asked him what the work had been. He said that it
was the dissecting of cats. A publisher told me that
nature-study is waning. I asked why he thought
so. He replied that his nature-study books were
not selling as well as they did. I told him that I
was glad.

Much that is called nature-study is only diluted
and sugar-coated science. This will pass. Some
of it is mere sentimentalism. This also will pass.
With the changes, the term nature-study may fall
into disuse ; but the name matters little so long
as we hold to the essence.

All new things must be unduly emphasized, else
they cannot gain a foothold in competition with
things that are established. For a day, some new
movement is announced in the daily papers, and
then, because we do not see the head lines, we
think that the movement is dead ; but usually when
things are heralded they have only just appeared.
So long as the sun shines and the fields are green
we shall need to go to nature for our inspiration
and our respite ; and our need is the greater with
every increasing complexity of our lives.

INQUIRIES 159

Would you advise me to take up nature-study teaching F
Yes, if you feel the " call " to it ; otherwise, no.
I would not have every teacher teach nature-
study any more than I would have every one teach
grammar. Every pupil should have nature-study,
under one name or another ; but he should receive
his inspiration from the teacher who himself is so
full of the subject that he teaches with spirit and
with cheerfulness.

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