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THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA

The Rural Outlook Set

The Outlook to Nature (revised)
The Nature-Study Idea
The State and the Farmer
The Country-Life Movement

The Nature-Study Idea

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE NEW

SCHOOL-MOVEMENT TO PUT THE

YOUNG INTO RELATION AND

SYMPATHY WITH NATURE

^ '' BY

L. H. Bailey

FOURTH EDITION, REVISED

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909. Reprinted
October, 1911 ; February, 1913.

NortoooU ^resa :
Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

A TEACHER WHO ALLOWED
A BOY TO GROW

3 in&ttihz tW ftooft

19666

Contents

PART I

Nature- Study Teaching

PAGE

I. What Is Nature-Study? 3

II. Who First Used the Term Nature-Study? i6

III. The Meaning of the Nature-Study Movement 27

What nature-study is not 29

The outlook by fact and by fancy 35

How nature-study may be taught 37

What may be the results of nature-study? 50

IV. The Integument-Man 5^

V. Nature-Study with Plants 67

Suggestions for plant work 7^

VI. The Growing of Plants by Children— The School-
Garden 78

Improving of the school-grounds 84

The school-garden 87

The larger relations 9°

VII. Nature-Study Agriculture 93

A point of view on the rural-school problem... 96

The prospect ^°5

PART II
The Teacher's Outlook to Nature

PAGE
I. The Teacher's Interpretation of Nature "3

II. Science for Science's Sake ^^7

III. Extrinsic and Intrinsic Views of Nature 124

IV. Must a "Use" be Found for Everything? 131

V. The New Hunting '39

VI. The Poetic Interpretation of Nature 151

VII. An Outlook on Winter '^'

viii Contents

PART III
Inquiries and Answers

PAGE
How Shall I Know What Subjects to Choose? 171

But If the Child Choose the Material, the Subject Will

Lack Continuity: What Then? 173

Then Would You Give No Heed to Continuity? 173

Should Nature-Study Give Way to "Fundamental"

Work?

1 74

What is the Proper Pedagogical Starting-Point for

Nature-Study ? j-g

How Shall I Make a Start? igi

How May I Secure Permission from My Principal to

Teach Nature-Study ? ig-

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

Wx)uld You Teach "Practical" and "Useful" Things?.. 185
Would You Teach Objects that the Child Cannot See

and Determine for Itself ? igg

How Much Apparatus Do I Need ? 188

Is It "Thorough"? ig^

But Will Not This Nature-Study Be Called Superficial? 191
Will Not This Nature-Study Tend Still Further to Over-
burden the School? 1^2

Shall We Teach the Child to Collect, and Thereby to

Kill? 194

How May We Develop a Humane Attitude Toward

Living Things ? 195

Would You Tell the Child the Names of the Things?.. 196
Would You Begin by First Reading to the Child About

Nature ? 197

Now That There Are So Many Nature-Books, How Shall

I Choose the Most Useful One? 198

How Shall I Acquire Sufficient Knowledge to Enable Me

to Teach Nature-Study ? 199

Contents ix

PAGE

Is It Best to Have a Professional Nature-Study Teacher

to Go from School to School ? 201

Should Not Nature-Study Be In All the Grades for All
Pupils, and Technical Work Be Left to the High-
School ? 202

Should the Parts of a School-Garden Be Apportioned to

Pupils, or Should the Work Be Done in Common? 205

Can I Make a Nature-Study Exhibition Useful as Part

of an Exposition ? 212

Why Should This Nature-Study Be Confined to the

Schools? 213

What Shall We Do with the Children in the Summer

Vacation? 215

Will Not This Nature-Study Work Interfere with School

Discipline? 217

Shall I Correlate the Nature-Study Work with Other

Work ? 218

What Can I Do to Put Our Rural Schools in Touch with

Their Constituency ? 225

How Can I Reach the Farmers of My Neighborhood?.. 235

How Can a Teacher Prepare Himself to Teach Agricul-
ture in the Special Schools That Are Now Being
Established ? 240

How Can I Do Any Nature-Study Work in the Ordinary

Kind of Schoolroom ? 241

Is Nature-Study on the Wane? 244

Would You Advise Me to Take Up Nature-Study Teach-
ing? 245

PART I

Being an attempt to define and explain
what nature-study is

What is Nature-Study?

A CONTRIBUTOR to a recent Issue of a
leading technical journal has endeavored
to find a satisfactory answer to the question,
**What Is nature-study?" by appealing to *'eml-
nent scientific men." The answers of these
men are printed there In full.

Now, the nature-study movement Is not a
product of "eminent scientific men," nor directly
of the current natural-science movement. It Is
a product of the common schools. 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
within Its realm. Happily, many scientific men
are also closely In touch with elementary edu-
cation, and therefore are fully competent to
discuss the nature-study movement, but It Is

4 The Nature-Study Idea

this very touch with the common schools, not
their eminent scientific achievements, that gives
them this competency; and some of the answers
referred to above are good definitions from the
child-teacher's point of view.

To be sure, the term nature-study etym'ologi-
cally implies only the study of nature; and
"nature" is conventionally understood to mean
the world of outdoor objects and phenomena.
But all words and terms mean less or more
than their mere etymology would imply, and
this meaning is determined by usage. So usage
has determined a definite office for the name
nature-study: it designates the movement origi-
nating in the common schools to open the
pupil's mind by direct observation to a knowl-
edge and love of the common things and
experiences in the child's life and environment.
It is a pedagogical term, not a scientific term.

Nature-study 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

What is Nature-Study? 5

objects: to discover new truth for the purpose
of increasing the sum of human knowledge; or
to put the pupil in a sympathetic attitude toward
nature for the purpose of increasing his joy of
living. The first object, whether pursued in a
technical or elementary way, is a science-teach-
ing movement, and its professed purpose is to
make investigators and specialists. The second
object is a nature-study movement, and its pur-
pose 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
formal 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 intentions or motives are distinct — they
should be contrasted rather than compared.
The nature-study method is a fundamental and,
therefore, a general educational process; the
formal science-teaching method Is adapted to
mature persons and to those who would know a
particular science.

6 The Nature-Study Idea

Nature-study, then, is not science. It is not
knowledge. It is not facts. It is spirit. It is
an attitude of mind. It concerns itself 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 courses of study; here and
there it will be incased in the schoolmaster's
^'method" and its hfe will be smothered; now
and then it will be over-exploited; with some
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 occa-
sions, for the purpose of discussing disputed
points or of answering challenges; some have
been written specially for this collection. Some

What is Nature-Study? 7

of them have been published. They are offered
in all humbleness, since every person's view is
necessarily colored by his own field of work;
but on the main thesis — that nature-study teach-
ing is one thing and that science-teaching for
science's sake is another — I have no hesitation.

The foregoing paragraph indicates the make-
up of the original edition of this book, which
was published by Doubleday, Page & Co. in
1903. The book appears to have found a con-
stituency beyond my expectations, and the
continued use of it influences me now ( 1909) to
make a new edition. If I were writing the book
anew at this time, I might put it in different
phrase ; but as it was written when I was actually
engaged in teaching and was filled with the
practical details of the subject, and as so many
parts of it have been so often quoted, I shall
leave it much as it was originally prepared.
Since the book was written, I have ceased all
teaching and have been consumed in educational
administrative work. I have therefore seen
the subject from a different angle; but on going
over the text I find nothing that I would change

8 The Nature-Study Idea

in the fundamental contentions. In fact, I have
a deeper conviction than ever that the method
and point of view of the nature-study people
are bound to exercise great Influence in redirect-
ing our education.

I have a growing feeling that the nature-study
method is not only a public-school process, but
that It is equally needed in colleges and universi-
ties for all unspeciallzed students. The process
applies, in fact, from kindergarten to college.
From long experience I am convinced that much
of our college physics, botany, zoology and
chemistry is very poorly taught if we are to con-
sider its effect on the student; and this effect is,
of course, the end of teaching. A student may
take college physics and yet have little concep-
tion of the common physical phenomena of life.
He may study physiology and gain little real
understanding of his bodily functions or of
every-day sanitation. These subjects are likely
to be taught with the special student In mind
rather than the general student. The teacher Is
disposed to think of the necessity of developing a
whole subject rather than to give the student a

What is Nature-Study? 9

rational and vivid conception of the material as
it relates to him. I have been interested all my
life in plants; but I should not care to have one
of my pupils devote four or five periods a week
for a whole freshman year to the study of
botany unless he were specially Interested In
botany. Much of the beginning teaching In the
sciences In colleges and universities Is undoubt-
edly very bad. It Is no doubt accurate, and it
may also be adapted to the few students who
desire to specialize in the subject; but such
students should be taken further In courses
designed for them. Condensed general courses
that give the college student a rational view of
the subject, without many details and exceptions,
are very much to be desired; and such courses
should attempt to relate the student to his own
experience in life.

We have been passing through a long epoch
of speech-education. This no doubt Is largely
the outcome of the results of the Reformation,
to teach persons to read their own scripture.
The schools must undergo a continual process
of growth and adaptation If they are to meet the

lo The Nature-Study Idea

needs of the passing generations of men. We
now feel that speech-education is not a primary
educational process, but that real education
should grow out of or result from the common
activities of the child. Some day we shall set
all our children at work when they go to school
and make them to be effective men and women
in the common work of men and women.

After all these years of nature-study enter-
prise, It Is naturally assumed by many persons
that we ought to be able to give statistics of the
number of pupils who are enrolled in the sub-
ject, the number of teachers that are teaching it,
the number of books that have been read, and
other exact figures. This supposition misses
the very purpose of the nature-study movement,
which is to set pupils at work informally and
personally with the objects, the affairs and phe-
nomena with which they are in daily contact.
There are very many teachers and very many
schools, and very many pupils, who have a new
outlook on life as the result of nature-study
work; but if I could give a statistical measure of
the nature-study movement, I should consider

What is Nature-Study? n

the work to have been a failure, however large
the figures might be.

The seed has been planted, and it has germi-
nated. The evolution of a new intention in
education is under way and is beginning to be
felt. The principles have been stated; the cur-
rent discussions are of methods, difficulties, and
of local and personal adaptations.

We are to open the child's mind to his natural
existence, develop his sense of responsibility and
of self-dependence, train him to respect the
resources of the earth, teach him the obligations
of citizenship, interest him sympathetically in
the occupations of men, quicken his relations to
human life in general, and touch his imagination
with the spiritual forces of the world.

If Hfe is worth livmg it must be invigorated,
and there is no invigoration without enthusiasm
and spirit. We must all have practice in the
common affairs of life; but practice alone is
dead, and worse than dead. If we cannot add
the spirit and the true sentiment to life, then
there Is no Interest in living excepting for that
which Is gross. It is better to have a thread of

12 The Nature-Study Idea

inspiring philosophy running through the day's
work than to have a very large bank account.
This means that a school should have a soul.

The reader will understand that I have ap-
proached my subject from the side of fact and
of experience, not from the side of pedagogical
theory or of the psychology of education. Na-
ture-study is experience-teaching. In my first
work and writing on nature-study, I think that I
was wholly unconscious of any conflict of my
views with the current theories of educational
procedure; in fact, the pedagogical theories
were unknown to me till they were called to my
attention. I had merely set forth my convic-
tions, resulting from many years of teaching, to
the effect that the best way to teach nature sub-
jects is to begin with good simple observation
rather than with dissection, classification, theo-
rizing or memorizing. I think that the same
process should be followed in the training of
the teacher himself. I doubt whether saturation
in the psychology of pedagogy affords a good
start for the training of a teacher. I observe an

What is Nature-Study? 13

indefiniteness and haziness of Ideas in persons
who have their theory before they have their
facts. They do not have their feet on the
ground. They do not drive stakes; or if they
do, they ponder the method until the operation
becomes hfeless. For nature subjects, the first
essential is an intense love of nature; the best
training Is to acquire the actual facts and to
know the subject, and then to go out and teach,
without too much burden of doubt as to
the kind and propriety of the theoretical
methods. I do not doubt the value of the
psychological study of education, and all teach-
ers should profit by a discussion of educational
history and method; but we should be careful
not to fill the young teacher full of ab-
stractions. A teacher may safely theorize
and speculate after he has learned how to teach.
Of the criticisms on this book and on my gen-
eral attitude toward nature-study teaching, the
most important is that I Insist too much on spon-
taneousness and Informality and thereby provide
an excuse for lazy or Indifferent teachers who

14 The Nature-Study Idea

do not want to make preparation for their les-
sons. The lazy teacher can find plenty of
excuses. One who fairly reads the book need
not be misled. My general plea Is a challenge
to existing hard-and-fast methods and to those
ways of teaching that take the pupil prematurely
beyond his depth. There Is no danger that
the school work will lack In formality: our sys-
tems encourage formality, and the desire to
standardize all methods seems to be extending,
but a free and natural procedure needs always
to be promoted and defended. In actual school
practice, It Is of course necessary that a system
be followed and that the teacher have ability
enough and knowledge enough to be able to
teach. I have not cared to prepare an outline
for class work: the book is concerned with the
nature-study Idea. Nor have I desired to make
supplemental statements In these Intervening
years, for I have wanted the Idea to sink In.

The recent years have been a time of wide-
spread discussion of all phases of education for
the people, and the nature-study Idea has re-
ceived Its full share of attention. Whatever

What is Nature-Study? 15

may be the opinion of individual teachers and
writers on the nature-study movement, it is a
fact that our educational methods are re-shaping*
themselves in such a way as to allow the pupil
to develop a sympathetic and vital contact with
his usual environment; and the stiff, dead and
painfully exact teaching of rule and fact to the
young is rapidly giving way to a free, spirited
and natural way of teaching. We can even
now begin to see the result in a less restrained
and more wholesome outlook on life in the
young generation. It will be much satisfaction
to me If I can feel at the end that this frag-
mentary book has had some effect in heartening
teachers not to be afraid to teach.

Who First Used the Term Nature-Study?

A BRIEF history of the origin of the con-
temporary nature-study movement will
clarify our Ideas as to Its spirit and purpose. I
am aware that the history that follows Is Incom-
plete, and that persons who were connected with
the beginnings of It are not mentioned; but I
think that the account will be useful In giving
us perspective, and In establishing an approxi-
mate 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 In North
America. Oftenest, perhaps, I have been re-
ferred to the teaching of Agasslz at Penlkese as
the beginning, at least In this country. Agasslz,
however, did not teach nature-study In the
school sense In which we use the 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

Who First Used the Term? 17

investigator's or the specialist's viewpoint, 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 Instru-
mental in forwarding It. Cornell was perhaps
the first university 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 Cornell work Is not so
much a school enterprise as a movement to make
use of the schools to reach the people on the
farms. This work, more than any other per-
haps, has emphasized the nature-sympathy and
the nature-relations.

The beginnings of nature-teaching are cer-
tainly as old as the time of Socrates and Aris-
totle. It Is concretely expressed in the work

i8 The Nature-Study Idea

of the great educational reformers — Comenkis,
PestalozzI, Jean J. Rousseau, Froebel and
the others. 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.
In the current acceptation of the term, 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. 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 acquir-
ing knowledge, and was introduced to displace
the mechanical 'memory' method current in the

Who First Used the Term? 19

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 knowl-
edge of Isolated facts not organized into a com-
prehensive whole."

Although the teaching of Agasslz 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 and his contemporaries set in
motion. A strong application of this Influence
to school life was made in Boston by Alpheus
Hyatt and Lucretia Crocker. In various places,
others of Agasslz's followers carried his spirit
into the schools. One of the most powerful
early adaptations of his teaching to the common-
school work was made at the State Normal
School at Oswego, N. Y. There was a strong
Pestalozzian influence In this Institution, under
the leadership of the late Dr. Sheldon. Pro-
fessor H. H. Straight went to Oswego in 1876.
He had come under the influence of Agasslz and

20 The Nature-Study Idea

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 educational process. The de-
fects he sought to overcome by "correlation of
the subjects of study." As director of the
practice school, he worked out his ideas of cor-
relation 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
(111.) 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 (111.) Normal School as early as 1889,

Who First Used the Term? 21

under the presidency of Francis W. Parker.
This Introduction was made by the late Wilbur
S. Jackman, whose teaching and writing In
nature-study lines are well known. In 1884
Mr. Jackman began teaching biology In the
Pittsburg High School. During five years' con-
nection 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 phenomena that occurred about
them. In the spring of 1889 he planned a gen-
eral 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 meet-
ing 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

22 The Nature-Study Idea

the plan already begun, as above outlined.
The features which perhaps most distinguished
this scheme of nature-study were: (i) That it
adopted the apparently 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, writ-
ing and other forms of expression, nature-study
in Itself became a demand that these subjects
should be taught. In the fall of 1890 he pub-
lished bi-monthly pamphlets averaging about
seventy-five pages each, which were called ''Out-
lines in Elementary Science." In the spring of
1 89 1, upon the completion of the series, Henry
Holt & Company asked the privilege of reprint-
ing and Issuing them In book form. This was
accomplished. There was considerable corre-
spondence concerning the name, which resulted
finally in the adoption of the term ''Nature-Study

Who First Used the Term? 23

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 recommend 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 con-
certed 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 continued
for a number of years, and usually an exhibition

24 The Nature-Study Idea

of the results was made. The work secured
such a good hold that the committee was finally
discontinued. In the same year the subject 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 till
1 90 1. The definite beginning of the move-
ment, 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 sug-
gested. This term seemed to be a good
equivalent of the German "naturkunde" — na-
ture knowledge. On all programs it was
thus printed and quickly secured standing.
Shortly after the movement began, the "Con-
ference of Educational Workers" was estab-
lished. One of the committees had charge of

Who first used the term Nature-Study? 25

nature-study and met monthly In Boston. Mr.
G. H. Martin, Agent of the Board of Edu-
cation, 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.

Amos M. Kellogg, editor of the "New York
School Journal" from 1874 to 1904, was one
of the early writers and advocates on the neces-
sity of drawing on the world about us in the
education of the young. Visiting a school in
Monroe County, Pennsylvania, in 1885, where
the teacher was Imbued with enthusiasm in this
direction and asked for special directions, he
suggested to Frank Owen Payne (who was then
a regular contributor to the "School Journal"),
the preparation of specific lessons; as the term
nature-study came to be used he suggested to
Mr. Payne the need of the hyphen between the
words, and this came to be In regular employ-
ment. The specific lessons prepared by Mr.
Payne took the title of "One Hundred Lessons

26 The Nature-Study Idea

Around the School." Mr. Payne began the
employment of practical nature-study in 1884
when a teacher at Corry, Pennsylvania; then
in 1885-86 in New Jersey. He lectured on the
subject in Minnesota in 1886-89, and has written
on it for educational journals.

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 word nature-study without knowing
where or how the term was suggested. The
term is now in widespread use In English-speak-
ing countries.

The word nature-study was used in January,
1905, In the title of a monthly magazine, "The
Nature-Study Review," edited and published by
Professor M. A. Bigelow of Teachers College,
Columbia University, with a board of advisory
editors. In January, 1908, the "American
Nature-Study Society" was organized, and the
Review Is now Its official organ.

The Meaning of the Nature-Study

Movement

IT is one of the marks of the progress of the
race that we are coming more and more into
sympathy with the natural world in which we
dwell. The objects and phenomena become 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 sympathy with 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 appli-
cation of Emerson's injunction to "hitch your
wagon to a star"; but It must not be forgotten
that a person must have the wagon before he
has the star, and he must take due care to
stay in the wagon when he rides in space.
Mere facts are dead, but the meaning of the
facts is life. The getting of information Is

28 The Nature-Study Idea

but the beginning of education. "With all thy
getting, get understanding."

Of late years there has been a rapidly grow-
ing feeling that we must live closer to nature
and make our nature-sentiment vital; and we
must of course begin with the child. We at-
tempt 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 recognized and regulated
methods of teaching nature-study. The subject
is not a formal part of the course of study; and
thereby it is not perfunctory. And herein lies
much of its value — in the fact that it cannot be
reduced to a mere system, is not cut and dried,
cannot become a part of rigid and formal school
method. Its very essence is spirit. It is as
free as its subject-matter, as far removed from
the museum and the cabinet as the living animal
is from the skeleton.

It thus transpires that there is much con-
fusion as to what nature-study is, because of the
different attitudes of its various exponents; but
these different attitudes are largely the reflec-

Meaning of the Movement 29

tions of different personalities and the working
out of different methods. We cannot say that
one way is right and another wrong. There
may be twenty best ways of teaching nature-
study. The mode is essentially the expression
of one's outlook on the world. Heretofore, we
have put the emphasis on training for heaven
and taking the child out of his world.

The reader who has followed me thus far
has got at the kernel of my thought. I shall
now go into more detail, with the purpose to
relate the discussion to the practical work of

the schoolroom, to develop the teacher's attitude,
and to state the essential nature of the move-
ment In different ways and from different angles
In order that the thought may stick. This chap-
ter, therefore. Is a budget of suggestions rather
than an analysis.

What nature-study is not

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

30 The Nature-Study Idea

^ It Is not the teachliig of science — not the sys-
tematic pursuit of a logical body of principles.
Its intention Is to broaden the child's horizon,
not primarily to teach him how to widen the
boundaries 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 Interpret-
ing elementary science. 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
with the object.

It Is not reading from nature-books. Nature-
study Is studying things and the reason of things,
not about things. A child was asked If she had
ever seen the great dipper. "Oh, yes," she re-
plied, *'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 value if
they are made Incidental and secondary features
of the instruction; but, however good they may

Meaning of the Movement 31

be, their influence Is pernicious If they are made
to be primary agents. Nature-study begins with
the concrete, as the child does if left to itself.
The child should first see the thing. It should
then reason about it. Having a concrete im-
pression, 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 order may be reversed with profit, but this
should be the exception : from the wagon to the
star should be the rule.

J Nature-study is not the teaching of facts
merely for the sake of the facts, or materials for
the sake of the materials: its purpose Is to de-
velop certain Intellectual powers by the use of
the materials. It is not the giving of informa-
tion only — notwithstanding the fact that some

32 The Nature-Study Idea

nature-study leaflets are information leaflets.
We must begin with the fact, to be sure, but the
lesson lies in the significance of the fact. It is
not necessary that the fact have direct practical
application to the daily life, for the purpose is
the effort to train the mmd and the sympathies
and to develop in the child a correct view of
nature. 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 to the pupil, whether
the subject is the codlin-moth or the ant, since
both may be within his sphere and his relations;
but to confine the pupil's attention to Insects
that are injurious to man is to give him a dis-
torted, partial and untrue view of nature. A
bouquet of daisies does not represent a meadow.
It is not a program for the teaching of
morals. Children should be interested more
in seeing things live and in studying their habits
than in killing them. Yet I should not empha-
size the injunction, "Thou shalt not kill." I
should prefer to have the child become so much

Meaning of the Movement 33

interested in living things that it would have no
desire to kill them. The gun and sling-shot
and steel-trap will be laid aside because the child
does not care for them any more. We have
been taught that one must make collections If
he is to be a naturalist; but collections alone
make museums, not naturalists. The scientist
needs these collections; but it does not follow
that children always need stuffed animals, birds*
eggs, and bottled specimens, although it is
important to encourage a regulated collecting
Instinct.

Nature-study is not merely the adding of one
more thing to a course of study. It Is not
coordinate with geography or reading or arith-
metic. Neither Is It a mere accessory, or a
sentiment, or an entertainment, or a means of
injecting vacant wonder Into the pupils. It is
not "a study." It Is not the addition of more
"work." A new ''study" taught by the old
method would not represent progress. The
Idea has to do with the whole point of view of
elementary education, and therefore Is under-
lying. It Is the full expression of personality.
3

34 The Nature-Study Idea

It relates schooling to living. It is a 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.

Nature-study should not be unrelated to the
child's life and circumstances. It stands for di-
rectness and naturalness. It is astonishing, when
one comes to think of it, how indirect and how
remote from the lives of pupils much of our edu-
cation has been. Geography still often begins
with the universe, and finally, perhaps, comes
down to some concrete and familiar object or
scene that the pupil can understand. Arith-
metic has to do with brokerage and partnerships
and paTtial paiyments and other things that
mean nothing to the child. Botany begins with
cells and protoplasm and cryptogams. History
deals with pohtlcal and mlHtary affairs, and
only rarely comes down to physical facts and
to those events that express 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

Meaning of the Movement 35

literature or with stories of scenes the child will
never see. Of course these statements are
meant to be only general, as Illustrating what Is
even yet a great fault In educational methods.
There are many exceptions, and these are be-
coming commoner. Surely, the best education
Is that which begins with the materials at hand.
A child knows a stone before It knows the earth.

The outlook hy fact and by fancy

There are two ways of Interpreting nature —
the way of fact and the way of fancy. To the
scientist and to the average man the Interpreta-
tion by fact Is usually the only admissible one.
He may not be open to argument or conviction
that there can be any other truthful way of know-
ing the external world. Yet, the artist and the
poet know this world, and they do not know it
by cold knowledge or by analysis. It appeals to
them in its moods. 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 Interprets nature and the

;

36 ' The Nature-Study Idea

world through 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 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.

We cannot say that the good poets have not
known nature, because they have not inter-
preted by fact alone. Have they not left us the
essence and flavor of the fields and the woods
and the sky? And yet they were not scientists.
So different are these types of interpretation

Mleanlng of the Movf-^nt 37

that we all luczn. The cnvl': the poet over
against the scientist.

Good poetry is not mere vacant sentiment.
The poet has first known the fact. His poetry
Is misleading If his observations are wrong.
Whatever else we are, we must have the desire
to be definite and accurate. We begin on the
earth; later, w^e may drive our Pegasus to a star.

Of course I would not teach nature-subjects
In order that the poetic point of view may be
enforced. I plead only that the poetic Inter-
pretation is allowable. It may be one result of
knowing nature for the sake of knowing it.

How nature-study may he taught

How shall nature-study be taught? By the
teacher and the object. 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 recitation Is to be from objects and
situations that the pupil has seen, not from the
book. There can be no text-book of ^eal na-
ture-study, for when one studies a book he does

38 J^

he Nature-Studv Id^

not study natui . . , ,ald be a euide

^ ^ ^^"-'nation an

to the animal or plani. the animal or plant

should not be a guide to the book.

The teacher may need the help of a program
or consecutive purpose. The program, how-
ever, should not be a tabulated series of regula-
tions or a hard-and-fast system; but there should
be some underlying educational principle or In-
tention running through every Item of It. The
work may be Informal and free without being
aimless.

This Immediate purpose or plan may be to
teach the progress of the seasons; the common
implements and simple handcrafts; the plant
life of the neighborhood; the bird life; the usual
Insects; the heavens; the weather and Its rela-
tions with man and animals; something of the
farming or Industries of the region; one's own
mind and body and how they should be gov-
erned in the interest of good health; or some
other theme that will tie the work together. In
practice, the work will almost necessarily be
consecutive because the teacher will feel himself
competent In two or three lines and will devote

Meaning of the Movement 39

himself to them. The environment will sug-
gest the work.

There will be opportunity for endless varia-
tion 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 — those
who have the greatest personal enthusiasm, and
w^io are least bound by the traditions of the
classroom. The teacher, to be Ideal, must have
more time, more feeling, and more knowl-
edge. It Is better If the teacher have a large
knowledge of science, but nature-study may be
taught without great knowledge If one sees
accurately and Infers correctly from the par-
ticular subject In hand.

The teacher should avoid starting with
definitions and the setting of patterns. Defini-
tions should be the result or summary of the
study, not the beginning of It. Mere patterns
should afford means of comparison only, 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.

40 The Nature-Study Idea

because the model flower does not exist in na-
ture. The model flower, the complete leaf, and
the like, are inferences; and the pupil should
not begin with abstract ideas. In other words,
the ideas should be suggested by the things, and
not the things by the ideas. "Here is a draw-
ing of a model flower," the old method says;
"go and find the nearest approach to it." "Go
and find me a flower," is the better method,
"and let us see what it is."

Two factors determine the proper subjects
for any teacher to choose for nature-study
instruction. First, the subject must be that in
which the teacher is most interested and of which
he has the most knowledge; second, it must
represent 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.

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-

Meaning of the Movement 41

study observation Is that which Is done out-of-
doors; but some of It can be made from material
brought Into the schoolroom.

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 see the objects
as they come and go from the school, and collect
some of them, the results will be the better.
As the pupil matures, he should be taken out to
the world activities.

It Is a sound educational principle that the
child should not be taught mere dilutions of
science. The young child cannot understand
cross-fertilization of flowers, and should not be
taught the subject. It is beyond the child's
realm. When we teach It to young children,
we are only translating what grown-up Investi-
gators have discovered 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 steps in the teaching of na-
ture-study :

42 The Nature-Study Idea

(i) 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 choose those having emphatic
characters.

But even In the dullest days of winter suflficlent
materials may be found to keep the Interest
aflame. A twig or a 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 teaching — the fact. However,
not every fact Is significant 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

Meaning of the Movement 43

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 most significant.
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 de-
veloped: 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 in the
hands of the pupils, you ask first for the observa-
tion or the fact. One says that 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.

44 The Nature-Study Idea

Query: Are all stones in brooks rounded?
Numberless applications and suggestions can be
made from this simple lesson. What becomes
of the particles that are worn away? How has
soil been formed? How has the surface of the
fields been shaped and molded?

It is not necessary that the teacher always
know the reason. He may propose that they
all find out and report. 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 unhesitatingly, "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 consciousness 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 exam-
ples. 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

Meaning of the Movement 45

greater because the objects are so very common
and famlHar.

To my mind, one of 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
that 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 shal-
lows. The grass and the dandelions lie on Its
banks. The moss and the fern are sheltered In
the nooks. It comes one knows not whence; It
flows one knows not w^hlther. It awakens the
desire to explore. It Is fraught with mysteries.
It typifies the flood of life. It "goes on for-

ever."

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 should constitute the burden of the effort.

46 The Nature-Study Idea

I would study a brook or a fence-corner or a
garden-bed or a bird or a domestic animal or
an Insect or a plant. The life-hlstorles of cer-
tain Insects, and all common forms of life, afford
excellent nature-study exercise for pupils of
proper age.

However, the teacher and the way of teach-
ing are more important than the subject-matter,
and there are good nature-study teachers who
are better fitted to teach inanimate than animate
subjects. There is no better nature-study exer-
cise than to observe the erosion by brooks,
floods, and rains, if the teacher is prepared to
handle it; and surely nothing can be more im-
portant than to put the child in sympathy
with the weather; and all persons should have
the habit of looking at the heavens in day and
night.

It is due to every child that his mind be
opened to the voices of nature. The world is
always quick with sounds, although our ears are
closed to them. Every person hears the loud
songs of birds, the sweep of heavy winds and
the rush of rapid rivers or the sea ; but the small

Meaning of the Movement 47

voices with which we live are known not to one
in ten thousand. To be able to distinguish the
notes of the different birds is one of the choicest
resources in life, and it should be one of the
first results of a good education. It is but a
step from this to the other small voices, — of the
insects, the frogs and toads, the mice, the domes-
tic animals, the flow of quiet waters, and the
noises of the little winds. It is a great thing
when one learns how to listen. At least once,
every young person should sleep far out in the
open, preferably in a wood or the margin of a
w^ood, that he may know the spirit and the voices
of the night and thereafter be free and unafraid.

Similar remarks may be made of the odors,
for the world breathes a multitude of fragrances
of which most persons are w^holly unaware.
Usually only the strong smells are known to us,
and we merely divide them into two classes, —
those that we like and those that we do not like.

All the senses should be so trained and ad-
justed that all our world becomes alive to us.
Then we are really sensitive.

One of the first things that a child should

48 The Nature-Study Idea

learn when he comes to the study of natural
history Is the fact that no two objects are alike.
This leads to the correlated fact that every
animal and plant contends for an opportunity
to hve, and this is the central theme In the study
of living things. The world has a new mean-
ing when this fact Is understood. This is the
key that unlocks many mysteries, and It Is the
means of establishing a bond of sympathy be-
tween ourselves and the world In which we Hve.
It Is a common mistake to attempt to teach
too much at each exercise; and the teacher Is
also appalled at the amount of Information that
he must have. Suppose that one teaches two
hundred and fifty days In the year. Start out
wnth the determination to drop into the pupils'
minds two hundred and fifty suggestions about
nature. One suggestion Is suflicient 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 min-
utes a day of nature-study to two hours; but I
should want It quick, sharp, vivid and spon-
taneous. I should want It designed to develop

Meaning of the Movement 49

the observing and reasoning powers of the child
and not to gorge the pupil. Spirit counts for
more than knowledge.

It is well to verify observations and con-
clusions on different days. Let the pupils com-
pare ideas and experiences. This develops an
Intellectual habit of taking nothing on hearsay
or for granted.

Taught in this way, nature-study work is not
an additional burden to the teacher, but may be
made 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 other time when an
opportunity offers. It may often be combined
with the regular studies of the school, and in
that way it may be Introduced in places where it
would otherwise meet with objection. For ex-
ample, the subject-matter of the nature-lesson
may be used for the exercise in drawing or in
geography. Let the child draw the twigs; but
always be careful that the drawing does not
become more important than the twigs.

My remarks on procedure are meant, of
course, to apply to children. As the pupil ad-
4

50 The Nature-Study Idea

varices, the work will naturally become more
systematic, until. In the high school, it may
develop Into more formal teaching, and then a
regular period will be required. 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. It is not In any
sense a letting down of standards. If properly
handled, but a new Intention In education.

What may he the results of nature-study?

Its legitimate result Is education — the de-
veloping of mental power, the opening of the
eyes and the mind, the civilizing of the Indi-
vidual. As with all education. Its central
purpose is to make the individual happy; for
happiness Is nothing more nor less than pleasant
and efficient thinking, coming from a conscious-
ness of the mastery, or at least the understand-
ing, of the conditions In which we live.

The happiness of the Ignorant man is largely
of physical pleasures; that of the educated man
is of intellectual pleasures. One may find com-

Meaning of the Movement 51

radeship In a groggcry, the other may find It In
a dandelion; and Inasmuch as there are more
dandeHons than groggerles (In most communi-
ties), 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. The
informality may be Its charm. Thereby comes
the contrast with the perfunctory school work;
and thereby, also, arises Its naturalness and Its
freedom. It Is easily possible to "organize"
nature-work until It becomes as automatic as
other work. 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, forceful, and volun-
tary; and this result Is worth securing.

The mode of presentation that naturally
develops In nature-study teaching Is really very
important In Its effect on the pupil's approach
to subject-matter and on his outlook to the
world. The presentation Is quick, simple,

52 The Nature-Study Idea

direct, little confused by apparatus and self-
consciousness and side issues.

Good nature-study teaching develops per-
sonality and encourages the pupil to think for
himself and to maintain an individual relation
to his world. It emphasizes adaptation to life
as distinguished from the tendency of much of
our teaching to produce uniformity of thought
and action.

Nature-study not only educates, but it edu-
cates nature-ward; and nature is ever our com-
panion, whether we will or no. Even though
we are determined to shut ourselves in an office,
nature 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. Few of us
can travel. We must know the things at home.

Nature-love tends toward simplicity of living.
It tends country-ward. "God made the country.''

Nature-study 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 whim. A move-
ment is a whim until it succeeds. We shall learn

Meaning of the Movement 53

much, and shall outgrow some of our present
notions, and shall eliminate the vagaries. It
Is In much the 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 sentlmentalism and gush on
the other.

In many ways we are now in a transition
period In our school systems. We are living In
an era of the material equipment of schools — •
the erecting of magnificent buildings, the gather-
ing 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 a
normal outlook on life. It Is the active and

54 The Nature-Study Idea

creative method. It Is a developing of the
powers of the pupil, not hearing him recite.
In spirit and method, it is opposed to the pour-
ing-in and dipping-out process.

The nature-study effort sets our thinking in
the direction of our daily doing. It relates the
schoolroom to the life that the child is to lead.
It makes the common and familiar affairs seem
to be worth the while. It ought to make men
and women effective and responsible. Essen-
tially, it is not an Ideal for the school any more
than it is for the home; but so completely do we
delegate all w^ork of teaching and instructing to
the school, that nature-study effort comes to be,
In practice, a schoolroom subject. The ideal
of the parent or the teacher should be to bring
the child into natural 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 and study of definite
objects and phenomena.

I will mention two forms of adaptation to
life, as Illustrations of what I mean, (i) Na-

Meaning of the Movement 55

ture-study teaching ought to utilize, as means of
education, the tools that a boy or girl naturally
uses. The habits of men are as Important as
those of other animals. How to use a jack-
knife, a hoe, a saw, an auger, a hammer, or
other implement by means of which man adapts
himself to his conditions. Is a very essential part
of good teaching, but one that Is almost uni-
versally neglected. The tools of the household
may be made the means of training a girl to a
new hold on life. These devices are not to be
studied merely as Implements, but as a part of
the study of the natural history of human beings.
All this would constitute a manual-training that
would be founded on good sense. (2) The
pupil should be taught to make observations on
himself. He will find himself to be a very
interesting natural-history object. It is just as
well to know how a man walks as to know how
a horse or a crow walks. The unconscious and
automatic habits of men and women are as
interesting as those of fish and Insects. This
kind of observation ought to have remarkable
significance to health. It Is most strange how

^6 The Nature-Study Idea

little we reason from cause to effect in our own
habits of eating and drinking and sleeping and
exercise, and how much we rely on the phy-
sician to advise us In matters on which we our-
selves would be much better judges If we
observed ourselves as closely as we observe
other objects. The simple regulation of the
dally habits of life lies at the foundation of all
good health. The application of the nature-
study spirit of direct and simple observation of
ourselves, with less of the physician's physiology,
would benefit the pupil and also our civilization
immeasurably.

The great intention of nature-study is to
cultivate a sensible Interest In the out-of-doors,
and to remove all conventional obstacles there-
to. Real Interest In the out-of-doors does not
lie in the physical comfort of being in the open
In *'good" weather (persons who have this out-
look do not know nature), but in spiritual in-
sight and sympathy. One sleeps In the woods
or fields not because these are the most com-
fortable places in which to spend the night, but
that he may have communion and freedom.

The Nature-Study Idea 57

There Is a large public and social result of
simple and direct teaching of common things.
It explains the relations between man and his
environment. It establishes a new sense of our
dependence on the natural resources of the
earth, and leads us not to abuse nature or to
waste our resources. It develops a public
intelligence on these matters, and it ought to
Influence community conduct. All teaching that
IS direct, native and understandable should
greatly Influence the bearing of the individual
toward his conditions and his fellows, awaken
his moral nature, and teach him something of
the art of living in the world.

The Integument-Man

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 ques-
tion of the point of view and what one is driving
at. A person may be so intent on mere literal
veracity that he misses the pupil. Much of
our natural-science teaching is as hard and dead
as the old Latin and mathematics.

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

The Integument-Man 59

mistake in statements of small 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 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 knowl-
edge of the subject does not make a good
teacher. Expert specialists are so likely to go
into mere details and to pursue particular sub-
jects 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 dead accuracy. It is more
important that any teacher be a good teacher

6o The Nature-Study Idea

than a good scientist. But being a good scien-
tist ought not to spoil a good teacher. The
Integument-Man sees the little things and
teaches details, and his teaching is "dry." He
lacks imagination.

The child wants things in the large and in
relation; when it gets to the high-school or
college it may carry analysis and dissection to
the limit.

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

The Integument-Man thinks that if any work
IS only accurate it is thereby of value; and
accuracy in nature-study begets accuracy in
science, when the pupil takes it up later on.
This is all well enough; but the child can be
accurate only so far as it can comprehend: it
must work in its own sphere; Integuments are
not in the child's sphere.

The degree of statement is more important
than final accuracy — if there is such a thing as
final accuracy; all knowledge is relative, and

The Integument-Man 6i

what is within the range of one mind may be
far beyond the range of another, and it is folly
to try to make the statement as full and accurate
for the latter mind as for the former. A very
Imperfect statement of osmosis Is accurate for
a child or a young pupil; a fuller statem.ent Is
accurate for the college student; and a still
fuller and exacter statement is accurate for the
physicist; but perhaps It is impossible to make
any statement of it that Is finally accurate. The
Integument-Man confuses all these degrees, and
thinks that because the statement is inaccurate
for the physicist, it Is therefore inaccurate for
the pupil or the child. Refined verbiage that
safeguards the statement to the scientist, may
confuse It to the beginner. It may be only
pedantry and narrowness. It Is not an acci-
dent that some of the most useful text-books
have been made by persons who do not know
too much about the subject.

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

62 The Nature-Study Idea

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 verbal preclseness forgets that
words are only metaphors and parables, their
significance determined by the use of them, and
that the essential truth, or the spirit, is what we
should search for — expressing it, when found,
in language that is alive, unmistakable, and con-
formed to best usage. We must measure the
value of any statement to the child In good part
by the strength and vitality of the picture that
It raises In the mind (p. 159).

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 all the methods.
It was evident that he was well drilled. He
had acquired a repertory of facts. These facts
were carefully assorted and ticketed, and tucked
away in his mental cupboard as embroidered

The Integument-Man 63

and perfumed 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 well used. Some school labora-
tories are so perfect that they discourage the
pupil in taking up investigations when thrown
on his own resources. Imperfect equipment
often encourages ingenuity and originality. A
good teacher is better than all the methods and
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 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.
This man will see first the large and significant
events; he will grasp relationships; he will cor-
relate; later, he will consider the details. He

64 The Nature-Study Idea

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." His teaching
will have freshness.

The Integument-Man Is afraid that this popu-
lar 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 sane man wishes to cheapen or dis-
courage the teaching of science. Nature-study
is not opposed to It. Nature-study prepares
the child to receive the science-teaching. Grad-
ually, as the child matures, nature-study may
grow into science-learning if the pupil so elect.
Science-teaching has more to fear from desic-
cated science-teaching than it has from nature-
study. It is the Integument-Man himself who
Is discouraging the teaching of science. Every-
thing that is true and worth the while will
endure.

All youths love nature. None of them,

The Intei^ument-Man 65

primarily, loves science. They are interested
in the things that they see. By and by they
begin to arrange their knowledge and impres-
sions, 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 atti-
tude should never be stifled, much less elim-
inated. When the Interest passes from the
heart to the head, nature-love has given way to
science. Fortunately, It can always remam an
affair also of the heart, but the dry teaching of
facts alone tends to divorce the two. When
we begin the training of the youth by the teach-
ing 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
living and accurate knowledge of some small
part of It, teach! Do not fear your scientific
5

66 The Nature-Study Idea

reputation if you feel the call to teach. Your
reputation is not to be made as a geologist or
zoologist or botanist, but as a leader. 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; the science
will take care of itself. 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

ALL the so-called natural sciences are con-
tributing to the nature-study movement.

Plants are so much a part of every landscape,
however, we have such constant association with
them, and the plant material is so easy to secure,
that they afford the very best subjects for nature-
study work. One cannot understand the world
if he does not know plants.

The methods in plant-study show a dis-
tinct development in pedagogical ideas which it
may be well to recapitulate. One can make out
four fairly well marked stages in the teaching
of plant subjects.

First, was the effort to know the names of
plants and to classify the kinds. This was a
direct reflection of the systematic or classifica-
tory 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

68 The Nature-Study Idea

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
troublesome in many places.

The second stage in plant-study in the
American 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 organography,
morphology and histology were organized 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, the German
laboratory methods have been widely copied in
America by the many young and painstaking
botanists who have studied abroad. As a result
there are many high-schools that are equipped
with microscopes and apparatus that would

Nature-Study with Plants 69

have done credit to a college or university a
few years ago. The customary 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 because it attempts primarily to teach
botany rather than to educate the pupil. The
field of view Is also very narrow, and the pupil's
mind is likely to be closed to nature and re-
stricted in its range. The stage of the micro-
scope 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 quite
perfect for the training of Investigators and
specialists, but it lacks the inspiration and the
educative Impulse that young minds need.

The fourth stage Is 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.

70 The Nature-Study Idea

Suggestions for plant work

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

A difficulty In the teaching of plants Is to
determine what are the most profitable topics
for consideration. Much of the teaching at-
tempts 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 com-
mon associations.

Plants always should be taught by the "labo-
ratory method" : that Is, the pupil should work
out the subjects directly from the specimens
themselves; but I should want It understood
that the best "laboratory" may be the field, and
that the plants are to be studied as plants rather
than as dissected pieces.

Specimens mean more to the pupil when he

Nature-Study with Plants 71

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.

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 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 customary technical plant physi-
ology is not a subject for the beginner. There
are better ways of putting the beginner into
touch with physiology. 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 dc-

72 The Nature-Study Idea

sires 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 experiences of the
pupils; (3) on the desires of the pupils, par-
ticularly 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 that is common and
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 dif-
ferent places: why? Do the plants "look" the
same In these different places: how differ and
why? (Note the size and form of plants, rela-

Nature-Study with Plants 73

tlve number of leaves, form and size of leaves,
root habit, abundance of bloom, length of flower
stems.) It Is a practice In some schools to teach
mathematics by means of dandelions, on the mis-
taken notion that nature-study Is being taught;
putting the word dandelion Into problems,
where the words stone, book, box or knife might
just as well be used, Is only verbal substitution
and will have little effect on the pupil's relation
to dandelions except to make him dislike them.
Having know^n 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
door-yard — knotweed 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 rag-
weed and burdock; one for the meadow swale
— smartweed and pitchforks; one for the barn-
yard— rank pigweed and sprawling barn-grass;

74 The Nature-Study Idea

one for the dripping rock-cllft — delicate blue-
bells and hanging ferns and grasses. These
categories may be indefinitely extended. We
all know the plant societies, but we have not
thought of them.

In every plant society there is one dominant
note: it is the individuality of one kind of plant
that grows 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
that can withstand the mowing. What are

Nature-Study with Plants 75

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 maple, 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 win-
ter 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, 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 physiological experiments of
many kinds (such as are now described in our
best text-books). In winter, studies may be
made of the forms of trees and bushes and ot

76 The Nature-Study Idea

persisting weeds, leaf-buds and fruit-buds, bark
forms, preparation for spring, tubers and bulbs,
seed-sowing and germination, struggle for exist-
ence in the tree-top, evergreens and how they
shed their leaves, how the different kinds of
trees hold the snow, where the herbs and ten-
der things are, cones and seed pods, apples and
turnips and other things from the cellar, knots
and knot-holes, how vines hold to their sup-
ports, and others. These subjects are intended
only as 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 is 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 teach-
ing light-relation : it were an equal pity to teach
light-relation without teaching phyllotaxy.

There 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. Of course the child
cannot understand the fundamental reasons for

Nature-Study with Plants ^'j

plant association — I wonder whether the botan-
ist does? — but the child can comprehend the
phenomena, and he will be interested in them
because they are so intimately associated with
him and are observable.

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.

I have spoken of the herbarium stage of
plant-study and have said that it is passing
away. It is perfectly possible, however, to
make herbaria without in any way lessening the
value of beginning plant-work (the rather in-
creasing its value), but the herbarium should
be a result of the work rather than constitute
the work itself. After the pupil has come to
know the dandelion or a plant society or the
flora of the neighborhood, he will do well to
make specimens; these specimens will be a part
of his records.

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-grow-
ing, 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.
The modern popularization of plant-knowledge
Is probably due more to these agencies than to
the progress of botany.

There are many practical applications to the
lives of children and to the home that may be

The Growing of Plants 79

made from a knowledge of j^lants and horti-
culture. This knowledge means more than
mere Information 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 wnth children.
We forget that things which fail to appeal to
us, because of our busy lives and great expe-
rience, 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 about nature.

It is not primarily Important that children
know the names, although the name is an Intro-
duction to a plant as It Is to a person. The
essential point Is that there should be plants
about the home, or in the school grounds, or in
the schoolhouse windows. Even though the

8o The Nature-Study Idea

children are not conscious that they are receiv-
ing any Impression from these plants, neverthe-
less the very presence of them has an Influence
that will be felt In later life, even as the presence
of good literature and furniture and the associa-
tion of refined surroundings has Influence.

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
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 bafile the wisest
men; yet this plant was my friend. It
faded when I w^Ithheld 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

The Growing of Plants 8i

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.
Provide some little means of growing plants,
not only to teach how to grow plants them-
selves, but to Instruct the child In 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 childhood. One plant
cannot be handled without leaving an impres-
sion on the life.

The love of plants should be inculcated In the
school. It can usually be better done In school
than at home, particularly when one or both
of the parents is opposed to It and constantly
discourages the child. Even when the parents

82 The Nature-Study Idea

are ready and competent, the teacher may be
able to reach the children more effectively than
they. In nearly every school it is possible to
have a few plants in the window. They may
not thrive, but it is worth while to set the child-
ren 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-root 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. Through
the centuries there have been few school-gardens :
we must not expect to overcome the lack at once.
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 advisable later. 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

The Growing of Plants 83

relation to the economic and social conditions
under which the school exists.

There is some confusion as to the ohjccts of
school-ground improvement. The purposes
may be analyzed as follows :

( 1 ) Ornamenting the grounds, com-
prising (a) cleaning and tidying them,
(b) securing a lawn, (c) planting. This
is always the first thing to be done. It
stands for thrift, cleanliness, comfort,
beauty, progressiveness.

(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),
(b) affording manual-training, object les-
son work, and instruction in plant-growing.

(4) Providing a test ground or experi-
ment garden where new varieties may be
tried, fertilizer and spraying experiments
conducted, and other definite studies un-
dertaken.

These purposes fall into two main groups :
(i) The improvement or adornment of the

84 The Nature-Study Idea

grounds; (2) the making of distinct gardens
for purposes of direct instruction, or school-
gardening proper. Much of the current dis-
cussion does not distinguish these two ideals,
and thereby arises some of the loss of effort and
effectiveness in the movement.

Improvement of the school-grounds

Every school-ground should be picked up,
cleaned up and made fit for children to see.
There are three stages In the improving of
any ground: Cleaning up; grading and seed-
ing; planting.

To Improve the school-grounds should be a
matter of neighborhood pride. It Is an expres-
sion 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?

The first thing to do is to arouse the public

The Grovvino; of Plants 85

conscience. Begin with the children. As soon
as they are directed to see the conditions they
will believe what they see. I'hey are not pre-
judiced. They will talk about it : teacher,
mother, father will hear.

The next step is to "clean up." Do not
begin with any ideal plan of landscape-garden-
ing 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 this would be unfortunate,
because most of the value in Improving a
ground is to interest the children in the work.
Develop the children's enthusiasm — it is easy
to do — in removing stones and litter and rub-
bish, 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 aroused to the pitch of keeping it done,
the next step Is to make a base or foundation

86 The Nature-Study Idea

upon which all the gardening or planting fea-
tures are to stand : the land must be graded.
In some cases the soil must be removed and new
earth put in its place, for the soil about a school-
house is very likely to be poor sand or clay, or
a mixture with building material and other rub-
bish; but in general this labor will not be neces-
sary if only a lawn and ornamental planting
are desired. In some places a lawn is Imprac-
ticable, 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 seed-
ing 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 dis-
cussed 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 its arous-
ing of public interest.

The Growing of Plants 87

The next year, plant. Let the matter he
discussed in school. Ask the children to make
plans. \\'hen the time is ready, choose the
simplest plan that seems to fulill the rc(iuire-
ments. It is well to get expert advice on this
plan. Rememher that during a large part of
the year the school-ground will he practically
without care; the planting must be able to main-
tain itself, if necessary. Leave the centers
open. Throw the planting mostly to the bor-
ders or margins. Be careful not to have scat-
tered effects in planting. Have the planting as
little and as simple as possible and yet accom-
plish the desired results. Avoid all elaborate
designs in bedding. 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
Interesting because it appeals to the onlooker
as a picture and not as a collection of plants.

The school-garden
The real school-garden is for direct instruc-

88 The Nature-Study Idea

tion. It is an outdoor laboratory. It is a part
of the school equipment, as books, blackboards,
charts and apparatus are. The 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 ready
for 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 making of a definite garden
is an epoch in the life of each school: it marks
the progress of the school in educational ideals.
The school-garden should have a special area
set aside for it, as any other garden, room
or laboratory has. Its prime motive is not to
be ornamental, but to be useful. The garden
should be a good garden, if it is to do its best
work. By this I do not mean that it be perfect
from the gardener's standpoint, but that it be
carefully planned and the ground put in good
condition. The children should do the garden-
ing; a gardener or teacher should not take care
of the children's beds for them. (For a descrip-
tion of actual school-garden work, see p. 205.)^

The Growing of Plants 89

A school-garden has a large range of use-
fulness. It supplants, or, at least, supjilements
mere book training; presents real problems,
with many Interacting influences, affording a
base for the study of all nature, thereby develop-
ing the creative faculties and encouraging nat-
ural enthusiasm; puts the child into touch and
sympathy with Its own realm; develops manual
dexterity; begets regard for labor; conduces to
health; expands the moral Instincts by making
a truthful and Intimate presentation of natural
phenomena and affairs; trains In accuracy and
directness of observation; stimulates the love of
nature; appeals to the art-sense; kindles Interest
in ownership; teaches garden-craft; evolves civic
pride; sometimes affords a means of earning
money; brings teacher and pupil Into closer
personal touch; works against vandalism; aids
discipline by allowing natural exuberance to
work off; arouses spontaneous Interest In the
school on the part of both pupils and parents;
sets Ideals for the home, thereby establisbing
one more bond of connection between the school
and the community.^

'From ''Outlook to Nature,'' p. IJ9 (Rev. Ed.)

90 The Nature-Study Idea

The larger relations

There is a broader significance to the grow-
ing of plants, as indicated in the foregoing
catalogue, than that associated with mere gar-
den-making or with the furnishing of school-
room material alone. There are social and
national aspects. Children in the home and
school should be interested in horticulture 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
persons 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, and the teaching of gardening Is
one of the ways In which to begin. 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-

The Growing of Plants 91

edge he has of farming methods the more these
vacations will mean. It is not necessary, and
perhaps not even important, that the child he
taught these subjects with the purpose of mak-
ing him a farmer, but rather as a means of
education and of interest to him in the out-of-
doors.

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 garden-
ing. It should have an intimate relation with
the lives of the people. All parks should be
open to nature-study teachers, at least on cer-
tain days. There should also be children's
days in the parks. In some places the park may
grow specimens for the school. In large cities
some of the common vegetables and farm crops
may be grown in small areas at one side of the
park. The tendency, perhaps, is to make our
parks too exotic, and to give relatively too

92 The Nature-Study Idea

much attention to mere roads, statuary, and
architecture.

The general appearance and attractiveness of
the home can be greatly improved by simple
gardening. The perfect garden, from the gar-
dener's point of view, may not be the most
useful or most decorative one. The garden
should be so common and so easy to make as to
become a part of the child-hfe.

VII

Nature-Study Agriculture

THE nature-study Idea is bound to have a
fundamental influence in carrying a vital
educational impulse to farmers. The accus-
tomed methods of education are less applicable
to farmers than to any other people, and yet
countrymen are nearly half our population.
The greatest of the unsolved problems of edu-
cation 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 com-
mon public school is a product of the uni-
versity and college. "The greatest achievement
of modern education," writes W. H. Payne,
"Is the gradation and correlation of schools,
whereby the ladder of learning is let down

94 The Nature-Study Idea

from the university to secondary schools, and
from these to the schools of the people." This
origin of "the schools of 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 country devoid of
schools and were to be set the task of originat-
ing and organizing a school system, he would
almost unconsciously Introduce some subjects
that would be related to the habits of the peo-
ple and to the welfare of the community.
Being freed from traditions, he would teach
something of the plants and animals and fields
and people and affairs.

So long have we taught the text-book routine
that we do not seem to think that there may be
other and better means. We may allow the
Greek Idea of education for culture, but we
must have other education along with It. 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 sympathy with one's environment tends to

Nature-Study Agriculture 95

make the Individual an integral part of the
activities and progress of his time. At all
events, there must be as great possibility for
culture In the nature-studies as there is in the
customary subjects of the common schools.
My plea is that new educational methods must
be employed before we can really reach the
farming communities. I am not insisting that
we make more farmers, but that we relate the
rural school to the lives of people and that we
cease to unmake farmers.

Man is a land animal and his connection with
the earth, the soil, the plants, animals and at-
mosphere is intimate and fundamental. This
earth-relationship is best expressed in agricul-
ture,— not agriculture merely as a livelihood,
but as the expression of the essential relationship
of man to his planet home. Agriculture affords
a primary educational course for the develop-
ment of the race. If this kind of instruction is
really to come and to be effective, nature-study
agriculture is not to be added to the school work
so much as to grow out of it as a redirection or
reconstruction of It. The best agriculture is

96 The Nature-Study Idea

a perfect adaptation of man to his natural
environment.

A point of view on the rural-school problem

A fundamental necessity to successful living
IS to be In sympathy with the nature-environ-
ment In which one Is placed. This sympathy Is
born of good knowledge of the objects and
phenomena In the environment. The process
of acquiring this knowledge and of arriving at
this sympathy Is now popularly called nature-
study.

The nature-study process and point of view
should be a part of the work of all schools,
because schools train persons to live. Particu-
larly should It be a part of rural schools, because
the nature-environment Is the controlling con-
dition for all persons who live on the land.
There Is no effective living In the open country
unless the mind Is sensitive to the objects and
phenomena of the open country; and no
thoroughly good farming Is possible without
this same knowledge and outlook. Good
farmers are good naturalists.

Nature-Study Agriculture 97

Inasmuch as this nature-sympathy Is funda-
mental to all good farming, the first duty of
any movement Is to establish an Intelligent Inter-
est In the whole environment, — in fields and
weather, trees, birds, fish, frogs, soils, domestic
animals. It would be incorrect to begin first
with the specific agricultural phases of the en-
vironment, for the agricultural phase (as any
other special phase) needs a foundation and a
base: it Is only one part of a point of view.
Moreover, to begin with a discussion of the
so-called "useful" or "practical" objects, as
many advise, would be to teach falsely, for, as
these objects are only part of the environment,
to single them out and neglect the other subjects
would result in a partial and untrue outlook to
nature; in fact, it is just this partial and pre-
judiced outlook that we need to correct (p. 32) .

The colleges of agriculture have spread the
nature-study movement. Such work was begun
as early as 1895 and 1896 by the College of
Agriculture of Cornell University. The col-
leges would have been glad If there had been
sufficient nature-study sentiment to have enabled
f

98 The Nature-Study Idea

them to emphasize the purely agricultural
phases in the schools; but this sentiment had to
be created or quickened. At first it was impos-
sible to secure much hearing for the agricul-
tural subjects. Year by year such hearing has
been more readily given, and the work has been
turned in this direction as rapidly as the con-
ditions would admit, — for it is the special mis-
sion of an agricultural college to extend the
agricultural applications of nature-study.

In making these statements I have it in mind
that the common schools do not teach trades
and professions. I would not approach the
subject primarily from an occupational point of
view, but from the educational and spiritual;
that is, the man should know his \york and his
environment. The mere giving of information
about agricultural objects and practices can have
very little good result with children. The
spirit is worth more than the letter. Some of
the hard and dry tracts on farming would only
add one more task to the teacher and the pupil
if they were introduced to the school, making
the new subject in time as distasteful as arith-

Nature-Study Ai^riculturc 99

metic and grammar often arc. In this new
agricultural work wc need to be exceedingly
careful that we do not go too far, and that we
do not lose our sense of relationships and values.
Introducing the word agriculture into the
scheme of studies means very little; what is
taught, and particularly how it is taught, is of
the greatest moment. I hope that no country-
life teaching will be so narrow as to put only
technical farm subjects before the pupil.

We need also to be careful not to introduce
subjects merely because practical grown-up
farmers think that the subjects are useful and
therefore should be taught. Farming Is one
thing and teaching Is another. What appeals
to the man may not appeal to the child. What
Is most useful to the man may or may not be most
useful In training the mind of a pupil In school.
The teacher, as well as the farmer, must always
be consulted in respect to the content and the
method of teaching agricultural subjects. We
must always be alert to see that the work has
living Interest to the pupil, rather than to grown-
UDS, and to be on guard that It does not become

loo The Nature-Study Idea

lifeless. Probably the greatest mistake that
any teacher makes Is In supposing that what Is
Interesting to him Is therefore Interesting to his
pupils.

It has recently been said that the nature-
study Idea must disappear In rural schools and
that agriculture must take Its place. Nothing
can be farther from the mark. Nature-study
may be directed more strongly In agricultural
applications, as the schools are ready for it, but
the process is still nature-study. All good agri-
cultural work In the grades must be nature-
study.

All agricultural subjects must be taught by
the nature-study method, which is: to see accu-
rately; to reason correctly from what Is seen; to
establish a bond of sympathy with the object or
phenomenon that Is studied. One cannot see
accurately unless one has the object itself. If
the pupil studies corn, he should have corn in
his hands and he should make his own observa-
tions and draw his own conclusions; if he studies
cows, he should make his observations on cows
and not on what some one has said about cows.

Nature-Study Agriculture toi

So far as possible, all nature-study work should
be conducted in the open, where the objects are.
If specimens are needed, let the pupils collect
them. See that observations are made on the
crops In the field as well as on the specimens.
Nature-study Is an out-door process : the school-
room should be merely an adjunct to the out-
of-doors, rather than the out-of-doors an adjunct
to the schoolroom, as It Is at present (pp. 40,
S6, 70).

A laboratory of living things is a necessary
part of the best nature-study work. It is custo-
mary to call this laboratory a school-garden.
We need to distinguish different types of garden
(page 83) : (i) The ornamental or planted
grounds; this should be a part of every school
enterprise, for the premises should be attractive
to pupils and they should stand as an cxamj^le
In the community. (2) The formal plat-gar-
den, in which a variety of plants is grown and
the pupils are taught the usual handicraft; this
Is the prevailing kind of school-gardening.
(3) The problem-garden, in which certain
specific questions are to be studied, in much the
spirit that problems are studied In the Indoor .

I02 The Nature-Study Idea

laboratories; these are httle known at present,
but their number will increase as school-work
develops in efficiency; in rural districts, for
example, such direct problems as the rust of
beans, the blight of potatoes, the testing of
varieties of oats, the study of species of grasses,
the observation of effect of fertilizers, may well
be undertaken when conditions are favorable,
and It will matter very little whether the area
has the ordinary ''garden" appearance. In
time, ample grounds will be as much a part of
a school as the buildings or seats now are.
Some of the school-gardening work may be done
at the homes of the pupils, and in many cases
this Is the only kind that Is now possible; but
the farther removed the laboratory, the less
direct the teaching.

To introduce agriculture Into any elementary
rural school, it Is first necessary to have a willing
teacher. The trustees should be able to settle
this point. The second step Is to begin to study
the commonest and most available object con-
cerning which the teacher has any kind of
knowledge. The third step Is to begin to con-

Nature-Study Agriculture 103

nect or organize these observations into a
plan or system. This simple beginning made,
the work ought to grow. It may or may
not be necessary to organize a special class in
agriculture; the geography, arithmetic, reading,
manual-training, nature-study and other work
may be modified or re-directed. It is possible
to teach the state elementary syllabus in such a
way as to give a good agricultural training.

In the high-school, the teacher should be well
trained in some special line of science; and if he
has had a course In a college of agriculture he
should be much better adapted to the work.
Here the teaching may partake more of the
Indoor laboratory method, although It is pos-
sible that our insistence on formal laboratory
work In both schools and colleges has been car-
ried too far. In the high-school, a separate
and special class in agriculture would better be
organized, and this means, of course, the giving
up of something else by the pupil.

In many districts the sentiment for agricul-
tural work in the schools will develop very
slowly. Usually, however, there is one person

I04 The Nature-Study Idea

in the community who is alive to the importance
of these new questions. If this person has tact
and persistence, he ought to be able to get some-
thing started. Here is an opportunity for the
young farmer to exert influence and to develop
leadership. He should not be impatient if
results seem to come slowly. The work is new :
it is best that it grow slowly and quietly and
prove itself as it goes. Through the grange,
reading-club, fruit-growers' society, creamery
association, or other organization the sentiment
may be encouraged and formulated; a teacher
may also be secured who is in sympathy with
making the school a real expression of the
affairs of the community; the school premises
may be put in order and made effective; now
and then the pupils may be taken to good farms
and be given instruction by the farmer himself;
good farmers may be called to the schoolhouse
on occasion to explain how they raise potatoes
or irrigate their land. A very small start will
grow by accretion if the persons who are inter-
ested in it do not lose heart; and in five years

Nature-Study Ao^riculture 105

every one will be astonished at the progress tliat
has been made.

The prospect

In recent years there has been a marvelous
appHcation of knowledge and research to agri-
cultural 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 to the less tangible but equally
powerful things of the spirit. More attractive
and more comfortable farm homes, better read-
ing, more responsive Interest In the welfare of
the community and the events of the world,
closer touch with the common objects about
him — these must be looked to before agricul-
ture really can be revived. Appeal to greater
efficiency of the farm alone cannot permanently
relieve the agricultural status. This Is all well

io6 The Nature-Study Idea

Illustrated In the attitude of children toward the
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 does not Itself awaken a

Nature-Study Agriculture 107

"desire for them. I should make farm life
interesting before I make it profitable.

It will be seen at once that all these new
ideals are bound to result in a complete revolu-
tion or re-direction of our current methods of
rural school-teaching. The time cannot be very
far distant when we shall have systems of
common schools that are based on the funda-
mental 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 begin-
nings of the new order.

The beginnings of the new order are seen in
the nature-study movement, the establishing of
special agricultural schools, the strong agitation
for county or district industrial schools, the
spread of reading-courses, the rise of pupils'
gardens, the extension work of the colleges of
agriculture, the general awakening of rural
communities. Books and methods are now
derived for town schools rather than for coun-
try schools; the real texts for the rural schools
are just now beginning to appear, and they repre-

io8 The Nature-Study Idea

sent 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 museum 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.

Nature-study teaching may seem to be an
indirect way of reaching the farmer; but It Is
not. It Is direct because It strikes at the very
root of the difficulty. Nature-study teaches the
Importance of actually seeing the thing and then
of trying to understand It. The person who
really knows a pussy-willow will know how to
become acquainted with a potato-bug. He will
introduce himself. One of the most significant
comments I have heard on nature-study work
came from a country teacher who said that
because she had taught 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

Nature-Study Ai^riculture 109

child can be done, In a different sphere, for the
city child. Fifty years hence the result will
be seen.

A nature-study movement alone is not suf-
ficient to awaken and reconstruct the agricul-
tural interests. There should be coordinate
efforts outside the schools. It particularly de-
volves on the colleges of agriculture to develop
good extension teaching. The extension move-
ment is already under way, several immediate
causes combining to make it imperative, as
( 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
states appropriate money: the appropriations
are made because work is done. Of these
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.

This new teaching for the farmer is a most
attractive field for well-directed effort. We

no The Nature-Study Idea

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 sub-
jects from the human point of view.

We are on the borderland of a mighty coun-
try : we are waiting for a leader to take us into It.

PART II

Containing several pieces that attempt to
direct the teacher's outlook to nature

The Teacher's Interpretation of Nature

TWO sisters stood 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 are many persons who will not
be pleased If they can help It.

I know a nature-study teacher whose first
Inquiry about any object Is, "What Is It worth ?^*
Or, "What value has It to mankind?" Some
objects are to be studied and protected because
they are useful to man In supplymg his wants,
and all others are passed over as not worth
knowing. I doubt whether this attitude can
bring about any close and satisfying touch with
nature. The long-continued habit of looking at
8 113

114 The Nature-Study Idea

the natural world with the eyes of self-interest
— to determine whether plants and animals are
"beneficial" or "injurious" to man — has de-
veloped a selfish attitude toward nature, and
one that is untrue and unreal (pp. 32, 97) . The
average man to-day contemplates nature only as
it relates to his own gain and enjoyment.

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 habits
of thought without knowing why. It is there-
fore well to challenge these opinions now and
then, to see that they contain the minimum of
error and misdirection.

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

However competent a person may be in
biology or other science, he cannot teach nature-
study unless he has a wholesome personal out-
look on the world.

The more perfect the machinery of our lives,

The Nature-Study Idea

i'.^

the more artificial do they become. Teachini,'
is ever more methodical and complex. The
pupil Is impressed with the vastness of knowl-
edge and the importance of research. 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 happi-
ness depends less on what he knows than on
what he feels.

In these increasing complexities we need
nothing so much as simplicity and repose. In
city or country or on the sea, nature is the sur-
rounding condition. It is the universal environ-
ment. Since w^e 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. The growing passion for country life
and the natural unspoiled world is a soul-
movement.

More and more, In this time of books and

ii6 The Nature-Study Idea

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 and 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.

Science for Science's Sake

A DEMURE little woman at the teacher's
convention told of the enthusiasm with
which her pupils had 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 T com-
plimented 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 w^ere worse than wrong: the

children must unlearn what she had taught

117

ii8 The Nature-Study Idea

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 super-
ficial. This way of teaching does not result in
mental drill. To make a collection is only
play, and names are vulgar. The pupil must
be Impressed with the completeness of his sub-
ject, and, above all things, he must be accurate.
When he was talking, I smelled alcohol and I
saw a frog In a museum jar.

Which was right? No doubt each was cor-
rect from the personal point of view, but
wrong from the other's point of view. I re-
called that the little woman recited only what
she had done; the man upbraided her for not
doing something else. Perhaps 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.

Science for Science's Sake 119

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 coidd take care of Itself. All
she was thinking of — poor soul ! — was to Inter-
est and educate the children. And she knew
that If she set a subject and followed It unre-
mittingly day by day the seats would soon be
vacant.

The man was thinking of his college students;
perhaps he had not considered that these stu-
dents already liked the subject and needed only
instruction. He forgot that you cannot force
a pel son 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 were the entire hun-
dred. His students had elected the subject; for
this subject perhaps they were to live; they
would Increase the boundaries of knowledge;

I20 The Nature-Study Idea

thev would be scientists. He did not consider
that all pupils would not be scientists.

Sometimes it seems as If scientists assume that
they have the right of way In the subjects which
they espouse; but there Is more than one way
of Interpreting nature. This domination Is
well Illustrated In the usurpation of common
words. The word "organic" relates to organ-
isms 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 ! Organic is a biologi-
cal, not a chemical idea. Again, our fore-
fathers used the word "bug" for many kinds of
insects; 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
themselves, 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

Science for Science's Sake 121

be used for new ideas. Science neetls a tecli-
nical language of its own.

What is the kernel of all this discussion about
the pedagogical sin of making collections and
of attaching names? It is no doubt derived
from the older practice of merely naming
things. The old idea of the study of nature
was to make an Inventory of the objects in the
world. The objects are bewilderingly numer-
ous, and to put them away in a cabinet, with a
proper ticket attached, was to know them. The
great want w^as names and classification; and
these names must be arranged in books. This
natural history bookkeeping received its largest
impetus from the binomial 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 is. But
it is only the beginning of wisdom. It is not
an end. The speculations of the modern evo-
lutionists have emphasized the Importance of
the objects themselves in a new way. The point
of view has changed. Do not let your pupils

122 The Nature-Study Idea

make an herbarium, the modern teacher may 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 exu-
berant desire of the child to explore and to
collect? And what better way is there to know
plants and animals than actually to collect and
to study them? 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 (p. 196) ?

I think that science teaching has gone too far
in discouraging 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 hves and grows. It
appeals to him more in the field than it does in
the museum. Let him collect for the purpose

Science for Science's Sake 123

of understanding a prohlciii. Where dcjes the
dandehon grow? What arc the plants In the
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. Teach him at the same time to
respect the rights of every ll\'lng thing, and
never to be wanton. 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 effort (p. 77).
The point I urge is that there is no reason in
the nature of things why subjects always should
be taught this way or that, so long as they are
taught truthfully and with purpose — and there
are many ways of teaching the truth. At one
time or place we may teach for science's sake;
at another time or place with equal justification
we may teach for the pupil's sake.

Ill

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Views of Nature

^'AT^HE purpose of this exercise is to tell
A. children how to see the hidden beauties
of flowers." Thus ran the announcement at
the opening of the classroom 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?

The "beauty" of a flower or a bird is only
an Incident: the plant or the bird is the Im-
portant thing to know. Beauty Is not an end.
The person 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 conserva-
tory and exclaimed, as she saw the geraniums,
"Oh, they are as pretty as artificial flowers!"

But these people are not looking for beauty,
after all; they look for mere satisfying form or

color or oddity. They confound beauty with

124

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Views 125

prettlness or with outward attractiveness. Real
beauty is deeper than sensation. It inheres in
fitness of means to end as well as in striking
features. The child should sec the object itself
before he sees its parts or its attributes. Teach
first the whole bug, the whole bird, the whole
plant, with something of the way in which it
lives. The botanist may well devote his life to
a cell, but the layman wants to know the trees
and the woods.

I dislike to hear people say that they love
flowers. They should love plants; then they
have a deeper hold. Intellectual interest should
go deeper than 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.

It is instructive to note the increasing love for
wild animals and plants as a country grows old
and mature. This is particularly well illus-
trated in plants. In pioneer times there are too
many plants. The effort is to get rid of them.
The forest is razed and the roadsides arc
cleaned. The pioneer is satisfied with things

126 The Nature-Study Idea

in the gross. If he plants at all, he usually
plants things exotic or strange to the neigh-
borhood. The woman grows a geranium or
fuchsia In a tin can, and now 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.
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 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
cherished. (I know a man who In his pioneer
days took no Interest In crows except to get rid
of them, but who later In life wept when a
crow's nest In an apple tree was robbed.) Love
of books Increases. All this marks the growth
of the Intellectual and spiritual life.

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Views 127

America Is a land of cut flowers. Nowhere
does the cut-flower trade assume such command-
ing importance. Churches and homes are deco-
rated 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.

All of us have known persons who derive
more satisfaction from a poor plant that never
blooms than others do from a bunch of Amer-
ican Beauty roses at five dollars. There is
individuality — I had almost said personality — •
in a growing, living plant, but there Is little of
it In 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.

128 The Nature-Study Idea

But the American taste Is rapidly changing.
Each year the florist's trade sees a proportion-
ately greater demand for plants. The same
change Is seen In the parks and home grounds.
Every summer more gross carpet-beds are rele-
gated to those parts of the grounds that are
devoted to curiosities, or they are omitted alto-
gether, and In their stead are restful sward and
attractive plant forms. 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 everything 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! Each

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Views 129

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."
A teacher asked me what snakes are "good
for." Of course, there is but one answer: they
are good to be snakes.

Being human, we interpret nature in human
terms. IMuch of our interpretation of nature
IS only 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; there-
from we evolve an hypothesis which may be
either truth or fallacy. Asa Gray combated
Agassiz's hypothesis that species were originally
created where we now find them and in approx-
imately the same numbers by invoking Mauper-
tuls's "principle of least action" — "that It Is
9

130 The Nature-Study Idea

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 wis-
dom" is correct? It is only a human meta-
phor; but, being human, it may be useful.

Much of our thinking about nature is only
the working out of propositions in logic, and
logic is sometimes, I fear, but a clever substi-
tute for truth. It is impossible to put ourselves
in nature's place — if I may be allowed the
phrase ; that is, difficult to work from the stand-
point 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 speculation;
we should then deal with things as they are.

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

Must a ^^Usc" be found for Everything?
'VERY 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 im-
portant. 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.

I wondered how these children would look
on 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 pass through

131

132 The Nature-Study Idea

brush and briers ; the mud-turtle Is flat so that it
will not sink in the mud; 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 pro-
tect it from the browsing animals; certain insects
have a zigzag flight to enable them to elude
their enemies. All the world is as perfect as
a museum !

I wondered what would happen if some in-
quisitive child were to ask what becomes of all
the plants that 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 soft flower-stem? As I
wondered, a httle hand went up. The teacher
granted a question. "Pigweeds ain't got
prickers," said the boy. I saw that the boy
was a philosopher. "True enough,'' replied

A "Use" for Evcrythini^ 133

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 neces-
sary only to hunt until she saw it; and in this
respect she was like many another. Persons
seem to interpret 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 difl'iculty is to determine
whether the explanation is true. I have just
read in an old book that the reason why a par-
ticular kind of graft 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 crow-
foot warm or that the sumac has poison to pro-

134 The Nature-Study Idea

tect 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.

A teacher asked me whether it is not true
that her 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 ever wanted to
browse on her cactus or its ancestors. Perhaps
the cactus spines are older than the browsing
animals. Perhaps there was some special con-
dition or reason in geologic time. Perhaps the
spines were in some way an incidental result
of the contraction of the plant body, which con-
traction 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

A ''Use" for Everytliing 135

she could see them. It Is a botlicr to look
behind for causes.

This Is a typical case. This attitude toward
nature comes almost dally to the teacher; In
fact, It sometimes comes from the teacher.
The mischief Is Increased by many popular
books on science, and 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 be able to see what this use is. Per-
sons 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 overlook
the common.

Having seen a feature 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

136 The Nature-Study Idea

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 metabohsm, and that the plant is for-
tunate In getting rid of it. If the plant Is now
and then protected, the result is an incident.
If It should appear that one kind of plant, by
natural selection or otherwise, 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 believe In perfect adaptation
of means to ends, without a slip or break In the
process. They assume that all organisms have
definite protectional features. A teacher brought
a flower and asked what mechanism it had to
Insure cross-pollination. I told her that I was
not aware that It had any; and she was sur-
prised. She asked what mimicry protection a
certain animal had; I was obliged to make a

A ^^Use" for Evcrythint^ 137

similar reply. T wish that sonichody woiilcl
write a book about non-adaptations and misfits
in nature.

No one knows what spines and thorns are
"for," and the true naturalist does not ask the
question. He does not assume that because
they would protect a man they would also pro-
tect another animal or a plant. 1 le wants to
know^ hoW' they came to be, and what is their
significance in the development of this particular
race. He wants proof that adaptations arc
adaptations. 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.

This everything-has-a-use dogma is in part a
reaction from the teachings of Darwin and his
followers. The dogma of special creation was
overthrown. We were told that organisms and
attributes have persisted because of natural
selection — because they were best fitted to per-
sist. The result, in many cases, is perfect
adaptation of every organ and attribute. There
followed a special literature on adaptation,
mimicry and the like. The precision and design

138 The Nature-Study Idea

of the special-creation theory was transferred to
the adaptation theory. The examples may all
have been true, but one result has been to lead
persons to look for adaptations and mimicry
everywhere, and to assume that they exist.
What does it matter If there Is no special crea-
tion?— there Is complete and universal adapta-
tion, vindicating the wisdom of the Creator
and our notions of what ought to be are verified.
But some one will say, if there Is natural selec-
tion and survival of the fittest, adaptation must
follow as a consequence. Yes; but it does not
follow that every part or feature of the organ-
ism is specially adapted, at least not at the
present epoch of time. A strong feature may
carry other features that 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 and remnants until they
have disappeared.

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 con-
tended hand to hand with the other animal
creation. He killed from necessity of securing
food. As he rose above his contestants, this
necessity became less urgent. He has now
obtained dominion, but he Is not yet fully eman-

«39

140 The Nature-Study Idea

cipated from the necessity of taking life. Per-
haps complete emancipation will come.

The old desire to kill — first born of necessity
— still lingers with men. We still have much
of the savage in us. 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 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 less dangerous
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
here little question of morals. We give that
we may take ; and we take because we must.

To kill for mere sport is a very different mat-
ter: It lies outside the realm of struggle for

The New Hunting; i^r

existence. Too often there is not even the jus-
tification 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 comhat. Over on the lake shore
every spring I see great cones of ice, built up by
the action of the waves. Several stalwart men
have skulked behind them and lie secure from
observation. A little flock of birds, unsuspect-
ing, 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 taint-
ing the water with their blood as they are car-
ried away on the waves, perhaps to die on the
shores. There is a shout of victory and a
laugh of satisfaction. Surely, man Is the king
of beasts!

But there Is another and fairer side. The
lack of feeling for wounded animals Is often
thoughtlessness. The satisfaction in hunting Is
often the joy of skill In marksmanship, the
pleasure of woodcraft, the enthusiasm of being

142 The Nature-Study Idea

in the open, 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 ma-
jority 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. The nature-
spirit is growing, and there are many ways of
knowing the fields and woods. The camera
and spy-glass are competing with the trap and
gun; and in time they ought to gain the mastery.
It is no longer necessary to shoot a bird In order
to know it.

I must not be understood as opposed to all
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 ways
of getting satisfaction from an expedition or a
camping trip. There was a time when animals '

The New Hunting '143

were known mostly In museums, or in books
that suggested museums. Wc now know them
in woods and fields where they live. We know
what they do, as well as what they are. Mak-
ing pictures from stuffed specimens will soon he
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.

A new Hterature has been born. It is writ-
ten from the out-of-doors viewpoint, rather
than from the study view^point. 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 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 Inter-
est In the animal and the way in which it con-
trives to live, not in some literary custom that
tries to make an application to human conduct.
No longer can one write a good nature-piece

144 The Nature-Study Idea

without Intimate knowledge of the animal or
plant In the wild, and until he 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 litera-
ture Is founded on first-hand 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 state legislatures. Is an excel-
lent 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

The New Hunting 145

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 most
significant 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 preservation of ani-
mals is now added the desire to preserve the
wild flowers and to protect scenery. The fu-
ture 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,
marksman, and collector alone.

This desire to protect and preserve our nativa
animals is well expressed in President Roose-
velt's reference to the subject when discussing
the forest preserves in his first message to Con-

146 The Nature-Study Idea

gress: ^'Certain of the forest reserves should
also be made preserves for the wild forest crea-
tures. All of the reserves should be better pro-
tected 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 Yellow-
stone 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 vegeta-
tion by overgrazing that the ground-breeding
birds. Including grouse and quail, and many
mammals, Including deer, have been extermi-
nated or driven away .... In cases where
natural conditions have been restored for a few
years, vegetation has again carpeted the ground,
birds and deer are coming back, and hundreds
of persons, especially from the Immediate neigh-
borhood, come each summer to enjoy the
privilege of camping. Some at least of the
forest reserves should afford perpetual protec-
tion to the native fauna and flora, safe havens
of refuge to our rapidly diminishing wild ani-

The New Hunting 147

mals 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 Is In danger here
and there of degenerating into mere sentlmen-
tallsm and faddism; but, on the whole. It Is sane
and useful, because it measures our increasing
sensitiveness.

Hunting to kill is not necessarily cruel. The

148 The Nature-Study Idea

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 Inevi-
table conditions; but this fact does not release
man, who acts largely as a free and 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 stragglers are taken.
Raise the curtain of night and behold the
tragedies. Where are the graves of the unfit?

Man Is not responsible for the tragedies of
nature; but he Is responsible for the tragedies
that he himself Inflicts.

The practices of any age are but the expres-
sions 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

The New Hunting 149

depend on fashion. Mere fashion has been the
cause of the practical extermination of species
of birds; but public opinion is finally aroused to
check it. The demand for furs is leading to
similar results. Many species of animals perish
before the continued progress of civilization,
by means of which the native haunts are de-
stroyed. We must protect that Avhich we 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, and of
a desire of bloodthlrstlness that Is unworthy
of us.

The foregoing remarks are meant to illus-
trate what I think to be an enlarging vision of
our own place In the world. The point of view
Is shifting. The spiritual factors have Increas-
ingly more Influence In shaping the course of
our evolution. In time we shall probably be
released entirely from the necessity of taking
animal life to supply us with food. This will
come as a result of our enlarging spiritual out-

li^o The Nature-Study Idea

look rather than as a result of agitations con-
cerned with questions of diet or with any mere
propaganda. It is said that the conformation
of man's teeth shows that a flesh diet Is neces-
sary, but this only indicates what our evolution
has been, not what It will be or what Is now
a necessity for us. The further evolution will
come slowly, but whatever It may be, we have
reason to think that our points of contact with
the nature-world will strengthen and multiply.

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'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink ;
Snug and safe is that nest of ours.
Hidden among the summer Howers.

Chee, chee, chce.

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'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Look what a nice new coat is mine.
Sure there w'as never a bird so fine.

Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,

Pretty and quiet with plain brown wings,

152 The Nature-Study Idea

Passing at home a patient life,

Broods in the grass while her husband sings;
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 little throat :
Bob-o'-link, 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!
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.

Poetic Interpretation 153

Keepinj^ house while I frolic about.

Chce, chee, chce.

Soon as the little ones chip the shell,

Six wide mouths are open for food;
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well,

Gathering seeds for the hungry brood.
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
This new life is likely to be
Hard for a gay j'oung 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
Where 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;

154 The Nature-Study Idea

Off he flies, and we sing as he goes:
Bob-o'-h*nk, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
When you can pipe that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln, come back again.

Chee, chee, chee.*

This was the exercise that the children were
having as I visited the school on a June morn-
ing. It was the new old song by which Bryant
IS 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 leave them. The
poem touched their hearts.

With enthusiasm I related the experience to
my friend, the teacher of biology in a college.
He doubted the value of such work. He saw
only danger In It. Such teaching tends to
looseness of Ideas. It makes the mind dis-
cursive. It does not fix and fasten the atten-

* From Complete Works of William Cullen Brvanr.
Published by D. Appleton & O*.

Poetic Interpretation 155

tlon 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 knowl-
edge 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 I
am seeking a fresh and firmer hold on life.
I should rather know the song of the bobolink
than to know all about the structure of the bird;
of course, I should prefer to know both, if I
could. To be sure, I should study the bobolink
before I studied the poem; but I should want a
real bobolink, not a stuffed specimen. If I
were obliged to choose betsveen lessons on
stuffed bobolinks and the poem, I should take
the poem: there is more bobolink in it.

156 The Nature-Study Idea

I like Bryant's lyric because It catches, so
much of the life of a bobolink. A scientific
description could tell the facts better, but only
ornithologists read scientific descriptions. Yet
I have always wished that the poet had told the
whole story. 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 rlce-
blrds 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'-h*nk,
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,

Poetic Interpretation 157

Over the mountain-side and mead,

Another proud ^room Is tclh'np; his name:
Bob-o'-llnk, bob-o'-h*nk,
Spink, spank, spink ;
The meadow belongs to wife and me —
Life is as happy as life can be.

Chee, chee, chce.

This is the age of fact, and we are glad of
it. But it may be also an age of the imagina-
tion. 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.
Compared 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
and hypothesis. 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 reason-
able, and that we allow it only at proper times.
In teaching science we may confine ourselves to

158 The Xature-Study Idea

scientific formulas, but in teaching nature we
may admit the spirit as well as the letter. If I
wxre making a teacher's program for the study
of nature, I should want to 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 He 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 inter-
pret them. Better no poems whatever than to
have manufactured and Idle sentiment. The
trouble with much of the sentiment is that it
gives us a wrong point of view.

In our day of science, people seem to be
afraid of figures of speech. The scientist for-
bids us to personify; and this Is well. But this
spirit may be carried so far as to forbid meta-
phor and to condemn parables. Speech can-
not be Hterally accurate. Even astronomers say

Poetic Interpretation 159

that the sun sets, but we know that it does not.
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 pic-
ture mislead any one? Everybody knows that
a potato-plant has no brains. Everybody knows
that the statement conveys a truth. If the
phrase is not justifiable, then it is a question
whether I may say that a potato has eyes.
Much of the objection to statements of this kind
is mere quibbling (pp. 60, 120).

But, on the other hand, all such allegories
must be true in spirit and in their teaching
value. Much of the current writing of plants
and animals by which human mo^ves are
implied, is productive of harm; but we should
distinguish between metaphor, or mere literary
license, and an untrue point of view. The ulti-
mate test is whether the reader is led to believe
what is not true. An animal or a plant mav be
represented as telling its own story without mis-
leading any one, even as a character in a novel
may speak in the first person ; we need not imply

i6o The Nature-Study Idea

human motives or human 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 effective way to reach the
audience for which it Is Intended. In general,
a direct and lucid presentation, without circum-
locution and Invention, 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
runs Into thin sentlmentalism, which makes the
"goody-goody" part of the work so prominent
that It becomes the child's point of view, whether
the writing Is In prose or verse.

The spirit of science lends Itself well to song.
The concrete Is not unpoetlc. 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. We need a free nature poetry that
will give us confidence and a firm hold on life.

VII

An Outlook on Winter

N the bottom of the valley is a brook that
saunters 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

II i6i

l62 The Nature-Study Idea

and to know the great world that I was sure
must He 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 remem-
ber that I was anxious for the spring to come,
that I might see it again. I longed for the
earthy smell when the snow settled away and
left bare brown margins along its banks. I
¥/atched 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 green-
ing of the banks and looked eagerly for the
bluebird when I heard his curhng note some-
where 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

An Outlook on Winter 163

death. The winter was only a season of wait-
ing, and spring was always late.

Many years have come and gone since then.
My affection for the hrook gave way to a study
of -plants and animals and stones. For years I
was absorbed in phenomena. But now mere
phenomena and materials have slipped into a
secondary place, and the old boyhood slowly
reasserts itself. I am sure that I know the
brook the better because T know more about the
things that live in its little world; yet that same
mystery pervades it and there is that same long-
ing 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 brook and I grew farther 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.

164 The Nature-Study Idea

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. 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 on winter with
some feeling of dread and apprehension. It Is
to be endured. This feeling It partly due to
the Immense change that comes with the ap-
proach of winter. The trees are bare. The
leaves are drifting into the fence-rows. The
birds have flown. The deserted country roads

An Outlook on Winter 165

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 ques-
tion of weather. We speak of bad weather, as
if weather ever could be bad. Weather is not
a human institution, and it is not to be measured
by human standards. There is strength and
mighty uplift in the roaring winds that go rois-
tering 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 have not found
the great joys of the open fields.

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

i66 The Nature-Study Idea

the forest. There are steeper undulations In
the footpath. Even when the snow hes deep
on the earth, the ground-Hne 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 penetrate 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 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 few
hardy birds, and the deserted nests, in the fret-
work of the weeds against the snow. In the
strong outlines of the trees, In the snow-shapes,
In the cold deep sky. To many persons these
strong alternations of the seasons emphasize

An Outlook on Winter 167

and punctuate the life. They are the moun-
tains and the valleys. The winter Is a part of
the naturalist's year.

The lesson Is that our Interest In the out-of-
doors should be a perennial current that over-
flows from a 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 mat-
ters not : the fields He beyond.

PART III

Comprising a budget of replies to many
questions of school people

Inquiries and Answers

PRACTICAL problems confront the teacher.
However well he may understand the
theory and however fully he may agree with it,
a new difficulty arises every time that he at-
tempts 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 made note of at the time. Questions
come in the mail. Some of these many inquiries
and answers are here reprinted, not because they
may be correct, but because they may be sug-
gestive; and it will not matter if they repeat or
expand some of the statements on the earlier
pages.

How shall I kjiow what subjects to choose?
Let the children choose the subject now and
then. Let them collect the specimens.

171

172 The Nature-Study Idea

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 (p. 44).
The teacher will not lose standing by the con-
fession, if he is honest. Persons 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 dis-
covered.

In general, choose the subjects you are best
prepared to teach and that best express or touch
the conditions in which your pupils live.
Whatever the subject, be careful to teach It
simply and with the least apparent effort. Do
not elaborate too much, or inject too much bor-
rowed information. Always tie to the object or
the materials. Do not teach zoology without
animals, botany without plants, geography with-
out knowing the earth, astronomy without stars,

Inquiries and Answers 173

any more than you would teach grammar with-
out language.

But If the child choose the viatcr'uil, the sub-
ject will lack continuity : zchat then?

Nature is not consecutive except in her
periods. She puts things together In a mosaic.
She has a brook and plants and toads and insects
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.

If all the things mentioned above are taught,
then the life of the brook will be the thread that
ties ihem all together (p. 45). It Is well to
introduce the pupil to a wide range of material,
in order to Increase his points of contact with the
world.

Then would you give no heed to continuity?

How much or how little the continuity will
depend on the teacher and the circumstance.
With children, the temptation is to have too
much rather than too little continuity. First ot
all, we must develop the child's experience.

174 The Nature-Study Idea

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 consecutlveness that relate the
subject to Its place and season. In April, cor-
relate the work with the opening of the spring;
In October, with the coming of winter. Com-
pare the nature-study of June with that of May.
Relate It to the farm work or other activities
of the neighborhood. With living things, the
cycle of the year Is the fundamental continuity.
LIfe-hlstory Is continuity. The procession of
nature continues the work.

Should nature-study give way to ^^funda-
mental'^ work?

[Suggestions In reply to a foreign corre-
spondent who asks whether we succeed in
America In "getting good nature-study In one-
teacher schools" ; what attitude we take toward
"the old-fashioned object-lesson work"; whether
teachers are not In "great danger of forgetting

Inquiries and Answers 175

that much of the most fundamental nature-
study concerns dead matter, e.g., die simple
chemical and physical changes that water and
air undergo in rehitlon to daily life."]

If nature-study Is a way of teaching, then we
ought not to expect ever to arrive at a complete
agreement of opinion and practice. At the
present time we are not even united on the
fundamental educational questions Involved,
although we are gradually coming nearer to a
consensus of opinion.

Many persons expect to find In the United
States a great number of schools In which nature-
study Is taught, meaning by that to find separate
classes set aside for this particular kind of
work. In very many schools this will be found ;
but I suspect the greatest results In the end are
to come when the nature-study mode or method
runs through the teaching of all the accustomed
subjects In the school, gradually reorganizing
and revitalizing them (p. 10).

A school with one teacher can handle nature-
study work as well as the school with twenty

176 The Nature-Study Idea

teachers if the teacher arrives at the nature-
study way of teaching. I mean by this that
the quality of the teaching may be good, quite
independent of its quantity. Of course, we do
not find a subject or a class under the name of
nature-study in the one-teacher schools to any
extent. What I mean by the nature-study spirit
is to teach the things nearest at hand in a
natural way and with the welfare of the child
always in mind.

I am sure that it is perfectly possible to teach
a child correctly and to put him into direct and
sympathetic touch with the world he lives in by
beginning with the biological and general phases
of his environment even though he does not
know the underlying chemical and physical
processes and reasons. In fact, I am convinced
that we must give up the idea that the child at
first must know the so-called fundamental pro-
cesses before he can know objects and phe-
nomena. As a matter of fact, not one of us in
the world, even the best of us, really knows
the fundamental facts. We have merely gone
a little further than some others have gone.

Inquiries and Answers 177

but in the end everything Is relative. If our
first object Is to develop the child and to
train his capacities and sympathies, then It may
not be necessary at all to begin with the under-
lying or internal reasons of things. These rea-
sons will come out as the child grows and as his
mind is able to grasp them.

I hope that we are rapidly passing through
the epoch of mere object-teaching. It has very
narrow limitations as ordinarily taught, because
It has had no vital relation to the child or to
the life that he is to lead. Merely to study an
object may or may not be of value In the train-
ing of the child. If that object has some rela-
tion to the life that the child is living so that
it will be meaningful to him, It ought to have
direct value in interesting him and In being
made a means of drawing him out into larger
growth.

From these remarks it will be seen that we
need not "replace" some of the "fundamental
work," as you phrase It, by nature-study. I
would have all work, fundamental and otherwise
(including "the simple chemical and physical

178 The Nature-Study Idea

changes that water and air undergo In relation
to dally hfe"), taught in the nature-study spirit.

What is the proper pedagogical starting-point
for nature-study?

[Reply to an inquiry from an officer in a
normal college, who is urged to develop the
nature-study in accordance with a pedagogical
hypothesis. He is advised as follows, and he
asks an opinion:

"The first advice is from the standpoint of
the biologist, that the child repeats the history
of the race and therefore should go to that
place in history for material which will corre-
spond with the stage through which the child
is passing. The nature-study work would be
based upon this idea and the history and litera-
ture chosen as nearly as possible from the stages
through which the child may be passing at a
given time.

"The other point of view makes the child's
present environment the standpoint for getting
everything, and the child with this as a basis
looks back upon and studies the life through

Inquiries and Answers 179

which the race has passed. The first point of
view Is really an application of the culture-epoch
theory In many ways except that some of our
people wish to use nature-study as the starting
point Instead of literature and history."]

I do not consider myself competent to answer
any questions on abstract theories of pedagogy.
I did not come to my present work through
that route. My educational outlook has de-
veloped personally and Is founded essentially
on the needs of the child, as I have been able to
estimate those needs, without reference to peda-
gogical theory. I have heard discussions of
the culture-epoch theory and other hypotheses
of the psychology of education, but I am always
obliged to come back to the simple fact that the
child hves In a real environment and that this
environment should be known to him and appre-
ciated by him. I do not depreciate the value of
the psychological theories, but I am not able
properly to place the nature-study work with
reference to them.

I should teach the child's world as he knows
It, for the purpose of enabling him to know It

i8o The Nature-Study Idea

better and to understand It. I should establish
the child In his own life and anchor the school
to the actual necessities of the community.
From this starting point, I go backward or
forward as the necessities of the case seem to
demand, without any particular reference to the
abstract psychology of the process. The child
Is not conscious of his place In the history of
the race until he Is told of It; and when he Is
told of It, It Is a bit of extraneous and exotic
Information, the same as any other extrinsic
Information Is. Of course, the child can be
greatly Interested In this fact, as he can be In
any other fact or set of facts under the Inspira-
tion of a first-class teacher; but this of Itself
does not appeal to me as being sufficient reason
for Instituting a method. From the teacher's
side, I doubt whether It Is good practice to use
the child as a means of working out an
hypothesis. It Is natural that every specialist
should consider his subject to be the center of
the circle.

I should begin with the common and apparent
facts of our existence and conditions, or with the

Inquiries and Answers i8i

next-at-hand; beginning at home, I should pur-
sue the exploration, and try to educate the child
by the process.

Hozv shall I make a start?

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 ! 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 a principal, supervisor or other
administrative officer and are thinking of start-
ing off a movement in all the schools in a city
or a commissioner's district or in a county, first

1 82 The Nature-Study Idea

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 should be attractive In subject-matter and in
mechanical execution. Never put a cheaply
illustrated 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 teacher 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

Inquiries and Answers 183

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. AH the
rest will work itself out. Money will come
from some source. Soon you will be publish-
ing 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
itself. It will soon be forgotten unless you
keep the spirit and the enthusiasm alive.
Organize your teachers and your children.
Keep at It.

How may I secure permission froin my prin-
cipal to teach nature-study?

This inquiry I cannot answer, for It is a ques-
tion of the personal point of view of the super-
vising ofl'icer, and possibly also of your own

184 The Nature-Study Idea

qualification. It is undoubtedly true that many
good nature-study teachers are repressed and
spoiled by principals, supervisors and trustees;
but it is also true that many persons who think
they can teach nature-study are self-deceived.
Perhaps your superior has been prejudiced
against the work by poor teaching on the part
of some former teacher; it is scarcely possible
that he could be now-a-days opposed to it on
principle. If he is opposed on principle, there
is probably nothing to do except to wait or to
change your place. If he has had experience
of shoddy work, you should ask him the privi-
lege of giving a few lessons on trial, or should
call his attention to the work or writing of a
successful teacher. Perhaps your work with
children at their homes would interest him. I
think that most of the opposition to this teach-
ing on the part of principals and superintendents
is the result of misapprehension of what good
nature-work is; it should be the pride of nature-
study teachers to correct this feeling by doing
the very best kind of work.

laqulries and Answers .185

JVould you teach heal, UgJit and physics as
nature-study topics?

Not as these subjects arc 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, by most
teachers, by confining nature-study rather closely
to biological fields and to those earth- and sky-
subjects that are most intimately associated, in
the child's mind, with the outside world. Many
of the phenomena in this outside world arc
physical, and I would not exclude them; but I
once knew a teacher who began nature-study
for children w^ith a disquisition on the conserva-
tion of energy!

Would you teach ''practicar and ''usefur
things? (See pp. 32, 97, 113.)

Yes, if the things arc such as appeal to the
child and are adapted to the conditions. No,
if they do not meet these requirements. In

i86 The Nature-Study Idea

other words, I should not choose them merely
because they are "useless" 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 "in-
jurious" or "beneficial." We must be careful
not to dwarf the sympathies by purposely con-
fining our work to those things that have "use."
It is an error to assume that all the things In the
world are important only as they relate to the
financial profit and the pleasure of man.

On the other hand, I should not neglect the
"practical" things just because they are prac-
tical and familiar. A horse, cow, pig, chicken,
potatoes, wheat, cotton, alfalfa, and the rest,
are excellent nature-study material, not only
because they are intrinsically as interesting as
other plants and animals, but also because they
are common and therefore near to our lives.
Familiarity should not breed contempt.

What one shall teach Is determined very
largely, of course, by the text-books In use In
the school. The commonest fault that my

Inquiries and Answers 187

informers find with text-books is that they have
little relation to life; or as the persons them-
selves are likely to put it, the books are not
"practical." I do not like to use this word
"practical," because it has been employed In
such a way as to arouse the antagonism of good
teachers. Used in its original and legitimate
sense it is well enough; but in order that the
larger idea may be expressed, I like to say that
text-books ought to be "applicable." The word
practical is likely to connote merely dollars-and-
cents information for the time being or for the
place. The word applicable is more central,
making the whole course of treatment, rather
than a few isolated facts, significant to the life
and interests of the pupil. The rigid text-book
has been imposed on the schools by the colleges.
With the emancipation of the schools, there
should come a greater dominance on their part
in educational policies. If the schools do not
exist for the colleges, then It is very evident
that a type of text-book that does not lead
college-ward may be needed for the common
schools; and this book will apply to the dally life.

i88 The Nature-Study Idea

Would you teach objects that the child can-
not 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 teach-
ing Is merely telling the child what some man
has found out. Bacteria, sheep's brains, com-
plicated llfe-hlstorles, chemical changes In germi-
nation, 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 appa-
ratus and the method may easily be made too
perfect. Any elaborate scheme or equipment
Is likely to be depressing to those who are less
fortunately situated, If they are to teach. A
laboratory In a teacher's training-school may be
so extensive and complete that the graduates do
not take up efficient work for themselves, feel-
ing that they cannot do so without much equip-

Inquiries and Answers 189

ment. Make the most of common and simple-
subjects, and leave the extensive outfits to
teachers of science. Two pieces of apj^aratus
that you ought to have are an a(jiiarium for
things that live in water and a terrarium for
those that live on land. These become "scenes

of life" and supplement the outdoors. (Sec
p. 229).

Is it ''tlwrougir?

"I 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
thoroughness. She took me to her schoolroom.
It w^as 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 continue the work for a month.
This, she told me, was thoroughness. I agreed
with her. "But of what educational 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."

190 The Nature-Study Idea

We all 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 con-
sists 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 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 thorough-
ness is only drill in details. In Its proper time
and place, I approve this kind of drill in mere
detail, but Its place is not to dominate the
school work.

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. We should put the child In con-
tact with its own life, and the teacher who does
this may teach with thoroughness whether he
teach much or little. We can always be thor-
ough and decisive as far as we go.

Inquiries and Answers 191

But will jiot this 7iatiire'Study be called
superficial? (See pp. 60-61, 119.)

No doubt. A botanist told me that I was
doing superficial work. Judged from the view-
point of research, perhaps 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 strike deep Into subject-matter. He should
try to be accurate as far as he goes. What is
superficiality in the specialist may be com-
mendable thoroughness in the layman. Even
the specialist is satisfied with the most super-
ficial knowledge in subjects outside his specialty.
His knowledge of men and of business, for
example, is likely to be superficial.

This charge of superficiality is usually only
the opinion of a different point of view. 7 his
is well Illustrated in the critical reviews of ele-
mentary 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-

192 The Nature-Study Idea

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 sub-
ject. Solid work Is as necessary in nature-
study as in anything else. It is not play, it is
not sentimentality, and it Is not blind wonder.

Will not this nature-study tend still further
to over-hurden the school?

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 sub-
ject demanding a place: It is a point of view
asserting Itself. It Is an attitude toward life,

Inquiries and Answers 193

and expresses Itself in a way of teaching;. Its
spirit will eventually pervade and vitalize all
school work.

It Is some comfort to know that our school
hours are now full, lliey cannot he fuller.
If other things are added, old suhjects must
drop out. It is a struggle for existence. By
introducing a freer treatment ;nto some of the
existing subjects, 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, or does not properly relate
it to the other school work.

We still hear of many teachers who cannot
find time to "Introduce" nature-study; on the
other hand we find many others, just as busy,
who are able to flavor the whole school with it.
If we accept that the nature-study spirit must
be an attitude and a direction of thinking, then
It does not at all follow that best results are to
be secured merely by adding It as a separate
period or task. The nature-study idea is some-
thing deeper and finer than sim{")ly another addl-
13

194 The Nature-Study Idea

tion to the course of study, coordinate with
customary school work.

We may need to take out subjects rather than
put them in, and make every one of those that
remain mean more. In time, the beginning
schools will probably not teach any of the
present-day subjects under their present names;
but this will adjust itself in the natural course
of evolution. The greatest need is to reor-
ganize the teaching of the subjects that are
already in the country schools.

Shall we teach the child to collect, and thereby
to kill? (See pp. 32, 67, 70-71, 77, 122.)

Properly directed, the collecting spirit should
be encouraged, because one never comes closely
into contact with his materials till he collects
them with his own hands. To be close to one's
material, develops enthusiasm and works itself
into one's character. Every person should know
the joy of finding something new.

How much or how little the collecting habit
shall be encouraged must be determined for
each case by itself; but, in general, the child

Inquiries and Answers 195

should be taught to respect the hfc of every
creature. Collecting should be an incident,
particularly with very young children, and it
should be encouraged only when It has some
definite purpose. The spirit of savagery should
be discouraged. I do not like to encourage
young children to "catch things" for the mere
excitement of catching them, but to study the
habits of things as they are. I have little sym-
pathy with the development of shallow senti-
mentalism regarding the life of animals and
plants; but it is a safe principle, with children,
to respect the life of everything, and to dis-
courage the spirit of the hunter.

Ho'-d; may zve develop the humane attitude
toward living tilings?

In reply to your letter, asking how I would
advise the teaching of "humane education" in
the schools, I will say that I should let such
teaching come as a result of a natural and well-
directed development of the child. I shouKi
not teach tenderness, sympathy and morality
directly as abstractions. I should try to inter-

196 The Nature-Study Idea

est the child in all living things, including other
human beings, leading him to see their lives
as they live them and enabling him to under-
stand them. He then would have a reason for
caring for them, and instruction would not be
mere preaching (pp. 32, 143).

Of course, it does not follow that an under-
standing of the habits of animals and plants
always insures humane feelings towards them,
but if sympathy and spirit are a part of the
teaching, it must inevitably lead in that direc-
tion. All first-hand contact with the verities
of nature makes for ethical development of the
Individual.

Would you tell the child the names of the
things?

Certainly, the same as I should tell him the
name 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 Ian-

Inquiries and Answers 197

guage that enables us to talk about the object.
Tell the name at the outset and have tlie mat-
ter done with (pp. 79, 121). Then go on to
questions.

Would you begin by first rcadiug to tlir child
about nature?

No, not in the school as a part of nature-
study work. The reading should come alter,
not before (pp. 30, 37). 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. Ex-
perience should come before theory.

There will be times, of course, in the exig-
encies of school work, when the teacher may
feel obliged to read to the children in advance
of taking up the particular study; but these
occasions will be exceptions, and not a part of
the system. In many cases, a vacant period or
a rainy day may be made useful by good nature
reading.

198 The Nature-Study Idea

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

Only by finding out what you want. The
multitude 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 difiiculty in choos-
ing; 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 the library Is part of
the equipment of the school. There is a gen-
eral feeling that a new book — particularly 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 hope I was right but this does
not imply that he was wrong. I hope that we
are both right. There Is more than one point
of view.

Inquiries and Answers 199

It Is not essential that wc have uniform
methods of teaching any subject In all parts of
the country, and there is reason why we should
not have them in nature-teaching. When one
text-book satisfies everybody, it is because every-
body Is uncritical and unpersonal.

Hoiv shall I acquire sufficient knozdedge to
enable me to teach nature-study?

In the same way that you acquire other
knowledge — 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 Information. The ambition to teach and
the love of doing for a child are the funda-
m.ental requisities. 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 wlio,
by teaching or writing, has helped the world to

200 The Nature-Study Idea

a higher plane, has said or written errors.
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. The real work is not per-
formed by timid persons (p. 59).

The best way to acquire the knowledge is to
work for a time with a good teacher, who has
enthusiasm and human sympathy. Read books
and leaflets. Above all, go into the field 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. (Pp. 44, 172.)

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

Inquiries and Answers 201

cannot. This at once elevates you in the pupiTs
estimation, for the pupil is convinced of your
truthfulness, and is made to feel — hut how
seldom is the sensation ! — that knowledge is
not the peculiar property of one person, hut is
the right of any one who seeks it. It ought to
set the pupil inquiring for himself. The
teacher never needs to apologize for nature.
He is teaching only 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;
his pride is in the good pupils that he sends out.

Is it best to have a professional Jiatiire-stitdy
teacher to go from school to school?

This is a local, personal, and administrative
problem. Ideally, it is best that every teacher
handle the nature-study, because, as nature-study
is a way of approach and a means of teaching,
its effect is greatest when it is most continuous.
In practice, however, some teachers will be sure

202 The Nature-Study Idea

to develop special aptitudes for the work, and
these persons should be retained for this par-
ticular effort. The best talent should be em-
ployed for nature-study, as for anything else.

If there Is a domestic science teacher going
from school to school, perhaps she could also
qualify in nature-study. Much of what we call
domestic science Is, or should be, pure nature-
study; and all home questions should find ex-
pression In the schools.

Should not nature-study he in all the grades
for all pupils, and technical work he left to the
high-school?

[This teacher asks the following questions:
"Should not every teacher who goes out to
the grades be prepared for giving the children
Instruction concerning the life about them?
Should not nature-study be planned for all the
grades as a means of giving the child his bear-
ings and relations to animals and plants, and
should not formal instruction In the principles
of agriculture come In the high-school? or. In
other words, should not the child's interest in

Inquiries and Answers 203

things out-of-doors be fostered by means of
informal and yet careful Instruction during the
earlier school years without special reference to
the utilitarian phases of nature?"]

Your questions are easy for me to answer
because they are framed in such a way that I
need only to say "yes" to every one of them.

Nature-study teaching is not specialized teach-
ing. It is a fundamental educational process
which should put the child right toward the
world and toward life. If every child should
have a close connection with his environment,
so, also, should every grown-up; and it follows
that if the grown-up is a teacher, he will carr>^
this spirit into the schoolroom.

The child who has the proper point of view
toward the world in which he lives, and proper
sympathy toward the objects and affairs about
him, will be better prepared for any kind of
study that comes later, whether that study is
Latin, mathematics, engineering, agriculture, or
other subject. I should leave the technical
agriculture for the high-school, and preferably
for the upper grades of the high-school. It Is

204 The Nature-Study Idea

better to have the formal agriculture come after
the student has had chemistry, physics and
biology, at least to some extent. This would
probably put the formal agriculture in the third
or fourth year of the high-school. In the
meantime, however, the pupil should have been
prepared for all this work by having his mind
open to the nature about him. In rural com-
munities this nature-teaching will, of course,
bring the child into touch with farms, whereas
in cities and towns the farming phase of It
would naturally be less emphasized. I should
not try to force any child to become a farmer,
or to follow any other occupation. When he
comes to the realm of the high-school, he may
of his own desire wish to begin to specialize.
I should hope that the early training would
be such that more persons would want to
specialize In agricultural subjects than has been
the case in the past; but the real nature-study
teaching Is quite Independent of this.

It is undoubtedly a mistake to introduce
formal and technical agricultural work into the

Inquiries and Answers 205

grades. It Is easy to refer the pupil in the
grammar grades to bulletins and books, when
he should be coming into original contact with
the life and materials about him. The pupil
should be taught to know domestic animals
before he Is instructed in the breeds of animals.
He should know the way In which the neighbors
build their houses and barns before he studies
the styles of architecture. The grade work
should touch many things, first and last, so that
the pupil gains some conception of his world at
large and, as you say, gets "his bearings and
relations."

Should the parts of a school-garden he appor-
tioned to pupils, or should the zvork be done in
common?

In practice this becomes largely a question
of administration: sometimes one thing may
be done and sometimes the other. Ideally, the
parts should be apportioned to pupils in
the real laboratory school-garden, lliereby Is
the sense of proprietorship cultivated and the

2o6 The Nature-Study Idea

stimulus of emulation aroused. 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 vege-
table-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 main-
tained In the plot-garden, but It Is more difficult
in the ornamental garden In which the plants
are grown In continuous borders. (See p. 87.)

In order to Indicate how some of the ques-
tions 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 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

Inquiries and Answers 207

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 okiest 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 airtd blanche^
however, In regard to the kind of crops they
shall raise or the position of them in the beds.
The supervision of the work 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

2o8 The Nature-Study Idea

mature rapidly, like lettuce, radishes, nastur-
tiums and marigolds; though peas, beans, cab-
bage, spinach and tomatoes are also cultivated.
The gardens are made and planted both in the
fall and in the spring, the crops sown in the
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. Straw-
berries 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 cultiva-
tion of a sense of beauty being esteemed of

Inquiries and Answers 209

equal Importance with practical Instruction In
agriculture— a large lawn has hccn 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 accomplishing 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 classroom 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 arc
planted In window-boxes, the seedlings afford-
ing 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

2IO The Nature-Study Idea

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 teach-
ing 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 con-
sidered anything 'good fun' that took them out
of doors, they now without exception look for-
ward with eager enthusiasm to '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, chil-
dren have raised wheat, corn, pumpkins, sweet
and Irish potatoes, and also many kinds of
flowers. A wholesome rivalry has sprung up

Inquiries and Answers 211

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 apjM'cciation
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 pa-
tience. A regard for the property and rights
of others is among the results of this coopera-
tive 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, espe-
cially to colored children, ^^'hcn we atld to
these unconscious influences of school-gardening
the conscious self-respect and self-reliance that
come from the ability to produce from the soil
something of one's very own, it will be admitted
that this subject is worthy of an honorable
place in the course of study of our common
schools, of which the Whittier School is only
a type."

212 The Nature-Study Idea

Can I make a nature-study exhibition useful
as a part of an exposition?

I hope to see good nature-study exhibitions
at all the great expositions. It is time that we
begin to relate education directly to the affairs
of life; or, to put the matter in another way,
to make the affairs of life a means of education.
I hope that you will find some way of making
your educational exhibition dynamic. Most
exhibitions are merely passive or static, con-
sisting of pictures and charts, books, apparatus,
and such other things as sit still. The very
essence and spirit of the new education Is
activity. I judge from your letter that you
are expecting to express this activity by means
of a school in actual operation. I hope that
you may also have a good school-garden In
actual operation, and also some effective out-
door laboratory work. I am not yet satisfied
with the school-garden movement. I think that
we have not yet developed its laboratory
significance.

The time Is coming when we shall begin our
educational process by putting the child Into

Inquiries and Answers 213

real activities of work and play, and when we
shall add the books and apparatus gradually as
he grows and the need of them develops. Your
exhibition should teach this.

Should this nature-study he confined to the
schools?

It should not be confined to schools. Too
often it is thus restricted because we are in the
habit of delegating the training of our children
to a professional class of teachers. Ideally,
the home should be the most perfect school,
and the parents should be the best teachers.
In the increasing complications of our lives,
however, the division of labor forces the chil-
dren more and more from the home-training
into the school-training; therefore it is increas-
ingly important that we give good heed to
the maintenance of schools. But e\cn so, 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

214 The Nature-Study Idea

desire to put the child into sympathetic relation
with its own necessities.

I fully commend education by means of
literature and history and science and art, of
course; but if I were confined to one means I
should choose that which 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.

But It does not follow because one or even
both of the parents Is in full rhythm with
the natural world, that the parents can teach
the child effectively. Few persons are good
teachers; and when there is marked difference
of outlook between the parents, the school may
be the only agency that can give the child an
harmonious relation.

The school Is a distributing agency for all
kinds of educational ideas. It must more con-
sciously recognize this function and take pains
to aid parents, pastors, and others to encourage

Inquiries and Answers 215

good work outside the school, particularly such
work as contributes to the prosperity of the
community. The high-school bears a marked
responsibility In this way, because it has greater
equipment than the grade-school and deals in
more particularized subjects. The influence
of the high-school should be felt not only In
the school grades, but in the whole daily life
of the people. It should set good Ideals of
public service by enabling the people to meet
their problems.

What shall we do zvith the children in the
Slimmer vacation?

This Is an exceedingly Important question
and very difficult to answer. The teacher has
no control 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 over-long and undirected sum-
mer vacation for both child and youth. The
colleges are beginning to feel this, as shown in
the development of four-term systems. The

2i6 The Nature-Study Idea

summer schools are protests against an idle
summer. Herein Is where the farm boy ac-
quires 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 ac-
complished in feats of idleness. One fourth his
time is mere vacation, or, rather, mere vacancy.
He Is handicapped 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 com-
petent and sympathetic guidance, with firm but
kindly disciphne and something like Spartan
fare, they are led to see and to know the
nature in which they are. In such camping-
out experiences the youth comes hard against

Inquiries and Answers 217

actualities. He gathers materials that are his
own and that become a part of his capital
throughout life. He comes to his own con-
clusions and to think for himself, not merely
to absorb his knowledge and opinions from
teachers and books. In later life he may ne\er
have another opportunity to secure this actual
experience.

I wonder how many persons ever saw the sun

rise?

Will not this )iaturc-stiidy ziork interfere liith

school discipline?

That all depends on what you mean by "dis-
cipline." 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 happy, then no ill result should come from
the nature-study effort. Nature-study should
supply some of the "busy work" between the
regular periods. The best means to secure good
discipline is to keep the child busy and inter-
ested. "Discipline" is then a result.

2i8 The Nature-Study Idea

The greater number of mischievous and re-
fractory children can be Interested in some
piece of personal work or investigation. The
boy who Is "hcked" at home and punished at
school is likely to spend his time midway be-
tween the two; and yet he may be easy to reach
if only he is understood.

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

This question can be answered only for par-
ticular cases. In general, correlation is an ad-
vantage 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 native objects and relations 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

Inquiries and Answers 219

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, the things it
saw in the market, the vehicles it sees on the
street, the factories and farms near by, the field
work, the house work, the school, the highway,
the hill, the kinds of fences by the way, the
collecting expeditions and the games. If the
child has had no such experience, why not be-
gin by assigning him a living topic to look up
and report on in writing?

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

220 The Nature-Study Idea

We stifle the desire to write if we first lay
down 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? Too often, I fear, we pre-
vent 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 "sub-
ject." I had importuned father and mother
and friends. "Winter," "Spring," "The pen
Is mightier than the sword," "The pleasures
of farm hfe," "Shakespeare" — all had equal
terrors. Rapidly the days passed away, and

Inquiries and AnsAvcrs 221

to-morrow the composition must be ready, and
yet of all the well-soundinjr subjects not one
seemed to present a way of escape. The
teacher — God bless her! — learned of mv nli<rht.
She asked me what was the best "time" I had
had last summer. Of course T 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 :\iu\ then came
into the "clearing" where the skidded logs were
covered with the tangle of berries and berries
— of course I knew I 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

222 The Nature-Study Idea

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 effort 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 ;

Hoiu a man impressed a child.— face, arms, legs

We all laughed; but we were told that this
was no caricature, 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 allow-

Inquiries and Answers 223

ing for all the errors 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 them to L'ncle John?
Would you not like to take her on your knee
and have her explain them to you?

What a littlt girl saw

224 The Nature-Study Idea

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 discov-
eries 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 afford objects in which
the pupil is genuinely interested; the drawing
should aid in focusing the observation and
making it accurate. Drawing should be en-
couraged primarily for the purpose of discover-
ing what the child really sees. As the child
sees more, and with greater accuracy, the draw-
ings 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

Inquiries and Answers 225

product of die 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 him-
self; then he may be taught to draw ami to
compose.

If correlation produces these useful results, it
should be encouraged.

What can I do to put our rural schools in
touch zvitJi their constituency?

What you can do, as a superintendent, to aid
your rural schools to better their conditions, is
to enter into a general agitation of the subject
through the local papers, through correspond-
ence with the teachers themselves and the school
officers, with the granges, and other farmers'
societies, village improvement societies, pastors,
and whoever and whatever else there may be
that stands for bettering conditions.

Work of this kind cannot be accomplished in
any one way or through any one source. With
a determination to alleviate the situation, with
15

226 The Nature-Study Idea

imagination and with industry a person can
accomplish a good deal in the directions about
which you inquire.

Following are definite suggestions to make
to rural teachers for working out in the school-
house (adapted from M. P. Jones, Cornell
Rural School Leaflet) :

1. Register with the college of agriculture
or experiment station of your state, to receive
the pubHcatlons and to be on the correspondence
lists.

2. Write to the state education department
for whatever syllabi it may pubhsh on nature-
study, agriculture, and similar subjects.

3. Start an agricultural and nature-study
library. A very creditable beginning may be
made at no cost except postage, by asking for
publications issued by the Department of Agri-
culture at Washington and the State Agricultural
College and Experiment Station. It Is recom-
mended

{a) That you write to the Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D. C, asking to
have the school placed on the mailing list

Inquiries and Answers 227

for the monthly hst of puhhcations and to
have the following sent to you:

I set of Farmers' Bulletins suitable to
the locality.

I copy of the list of Publications for
Free Distribution.

I copy of the hst of Publications for
Sale.

I copy each of reprints of areas that
have been surveyed by the Bureau of Soils
in your state.

I copy each of Bulletins 186 and 160
and Circulars 77 and 52 of the Office of
Experiment Stations. On receipt of these
bulletins, holes should be punched through
them and strings used to tie them together.
Manila paper may be used for covers.

(b) That you write to the Geological
Survey, Washington, D. C, inclosing 15
cents in stamps and asking for the three
geological survey maps that cover your
region.

228 The Nature-Study Idea

congressman or senator, for copies of state
or national documents that are distributed by
them.

(d) That you secure the use of a travel-
ing library, If such libraries are issued by
the education department or other agency In
your state.

(e) That as many agricultural and nature-
study books be added to the library as money
will permit.

4. Beautify the school-grounds. Endeavor
to interest the trustees and the farmers of the
district. In one district, an oyster supper
brought forth money and enthusiasm enough to
produce a marked improvement. Valuable
suggestions will be found in

Farmer's Bulletin (U. S. Dept. Agricul-
ture) No. 43, "Tree Planting on Rural
School Grounds."

Farmer's Bulletin No. 185, "Beautifying
the Home."

Farmer's Bulletin No. 248, "The Lawn."
Farmer's Bulletin No. 218, "The School-
Garden."

Inquiries and Answers 229

Perhaps the agrlcuhural college of your state,
or your state education department, has Issued
publications on this subject.

5. Begin a scJiool-i^ardi'n. Every country
school should have its garden. If possible. It
should be large enough so that every child may
have a garden of its own. Ihe children
should also be encouraged to have gardens at
home. The school-garden may be used as an
experiment station to test fertilizers, varieties,
methods of planting, and the like. Read books
and bulletins on the subject.

It will be found less expensive to buy seeds
in bulk and divide these into penny packets to
be sold or given to the children, preferably sold.

6. Make a zviudozi-box and have plants
growing in it.

7. Have a terrarhim. This is a box with
sides and top made of window screens. The
top is hinged so that it can be raised. Karth
may be put in the bottom and plants alKnved
to grow in it. Frogs, toads, insects and other
outdoor life can thus be safely housed. The

230 The Nature-Study Idea

terrarium may be used In winter In the study of
fowls.

8. Have an aquarium. A glass vessel or a
Mason fruit-jar, with water frequently renewed,
will serve for a time. Have some water-plants
growing In the aquarium and keep a few fishes,
salamanders and tadpoles for study.

9. Have a museum of things related to the
life and affairs of the region. Let the collec-
tion be started and increased by the children
themselves. It Is suggested that collections be
made of the following:

{a) The different types of soil found in
the neighborhood: sand, silt, clay, muck, and
sandy, silty and clay loams.

{h) Seeds of common vegetables, flowers,
fruits, and frees.

{c) Common grasses: timothy, red-top,
meadow fescue, Kentucky blue-grass orchard-
grass.

{d) Common legumes of the farm and
garden : red, white, and alsike clovers, alfalfa,
peas, beans, vetch, soy beans, cowpeas.

Inquiries and Answers 231

(e) Comon cereals: corn, wheat, oats, rye,
barley, buckwheat, rice.

(/) Ears of corn: flint, dent, pop, sweet.
Secure ears showing the qualities that good
ears should have. A lesson in corn-judging
may profitably be given.

(g) Fertilizers: nitrate of soda, dried
blood, ground bone, acid phosphate, muriate
of potash, and as many others as are used In
the neighborhood.

(h) Feeds for farm animals: bran, mid-
dlings, gluten feed, buckwheat middlings,
and others in use. The local feed merchant
and seedman might lend their aid In supply-
ing samples of these feeds, samples of ferti-
lizers and seeds.

(i) Fruit. In the fall, different varieties
of apples, pears, plums, and grapes could be
collected, probably with much enthusiasm, by
the children. Part of an afternoon could
be given for a short talk on fruit-growing
by a local fruit-grower, after which the sam-
ples of fruit could be eaten. Similar col-

232 The Nature-Study Idea

lections of root-crops and vegetables might
be made, not with the Idea of keeping them
In the school for a long time, but as one of
the best m^eans of teaching children to become
familiar with the common things of their
farms.

(;) Flowers and weeds. These can be
pressed and used as the basis for the school
collection. Begin with the most common
plants and enlarge the collection slowly.

(k) Leaves of trees. Press the leaves
of some of the most common trees, adding
to the collection slowly enough for the chil-
dren to learn as they go.

(/) Fibers: wools of different kinds,
cotton, flax, hemp; ropes, twine (particularly
binder twine), bagging, fabrics, etc.
10. Teach the Bahcock milk test. Some
schools have demonstrated the use of this test
before grange meetings. Complete mllk-test-
Ing outfits suited for school use are manu-
factured at small price. Write to dairy supply
house for catalogues, and get Information from
your college of agriculture.

Inquiries and Answers 233

11. Have a rcad'ni^-tahlc. Secure a few
good magazines, agricultural and other kimls.
No poor books or poor magazines should he in
the schoolroom or home. Some publishers ot
agricultural magazines will send complimentary
copies if, in asking for them, it is stated that
they are wanted for the school library.

12. Have a zvork-hcnch with tools, if pos-
sible. The boys and girls should become famil-
iar with the handling of common carpenters'
tools. Simple things, especially those that can
be used on the farm or at play, may be made,
such as a window-box, terrarium, stakes tor the
school-garden, bird-houses, kites, sleds, skees,
book-shelves, tables, flower-stands. 1 land tools
can be repaired. This will provide excellent
manual-training, developing naturally into use
of wheels and more complex forms.

13. Have one or two ^cascs with flowers well
arranged.

14. Have a school fair. These have been
found very successful where tried. Children
exhibit products from their own gardens and
benches. The girls exhibit cakes, pies, biscuits.

234 The Nature-Study Idea

which they have made. Small prizes are given.
The people of the district are Invited and the
fair Is made one of the Important social events
of the year. It will probably be found that
the older people enter enthusiastically Into a
competition of their own, and If this can be
arranged It will add greatly to the success of
the fair. Take the exhibit to the county fair
or state fair.

15. Take occasional trips to neighboring
farms, factories, to the woods and fields.

16. Provide some simple apparatus, as, for
example, the following to begin with:

I Babcock milk test (If In a dairy

country) $5.00

I tripod lens magnifying glass 75

I terrarlum 1.25

I aquarium 2.00

I Insect net (home made)

Various cups and boxes to hold specimens.

17. Try to know the weather. If you have
expeditious mall service, apply to the United
States Weather Bureau for the dally bulletins

Inquiries and Answers 235

and a frame to put them in. A ^rood tlicr-
mometer should he huntr in a protected shady
place. Thermometers that are reliahle at hi^^h
and low temperatures usually cost more than
one dollar. A rain-gauge will he useful and
interesting. Some schools may add a haromcter,
if the teacher understands it; hut the cheap
instruments are not reliahle.

How can I reach the farmers of my neigh-
bor hood f

[A teacher is discouraged because she seems
to make no headway; and the farmers com-
plain that her work is not practical and they
want to know how to make more money.]

While you are under obligation to teach
farmers' children, you do not bear the responsi-
bility of making the farms profitable. It is the
business of the farmer himsell" to make his
farming pay. You are engaged in the work of
education.

How to teach, not how to farm, is there-
fore your problem. T take it to be axiomatic

236 The Nature-Study Idea

that every person's mind should be expanded
in order that he may derive the greatest satis-
faction from hfe. If the occupation in which
he is engaged will not allow him to derive
this satisfaction, then it is his privilege, and
in fact his duty, to change his occupation. I
am very sure that the educating of farmer
boys and girls will often have the effect of
taking them away from the old farm. It is
a question, then, whether the whole point of
view on farming must not change and whether
such new methods and new types of life must
be developed as to Interest persons with a broad
outlook on life. I think that the diffusion of
information and the extension of education is
bound to have this effect on the farming Indus-
try in the long run. In the meantime. It Is for
us to try to determine just what Is the most
practicable means of procedure In the educating
of the country boy and girl, that will give them
a satisfactory outlook on Hfe, and make them
least willing to give up their place In the country.
Time and again I have had problems similar
to the one that your patron asks of you, namely,

Inquiries and Answers 237

that instead of giving scientific Information
about eggs, you tell him how to make his hens
lay better when eggs are scarce. It is very
easy to ask how to make hens lay in October
and November; it is quite another thing to
answer the question. Such a question cannot
be answered out of hand. A man must first
learn something about breeding, and feeding,
and care, and other things. In other words, a
man must have enough fundamental knowledge
to know the reasons why, and this knowletlge
Is necessarily scientific. It is utterly impossible
to try to answer the greater part of our agri-
cultural questions until the questioner has some
really underlying understanding of the condi-
tions, and processes, and principles invol\-ed.
The lack of this understanding is one reason
why farmers are so backward in utilizing
advice, and also why they are unable to use the
experiment station bulletins.

But even If you could tell your patron how
to make hens lay In October, that would not
settle or simplify your teaching, ^'ou must
lead your pupils to go beyond an isolated fact

238 The Nature-Study Idea

and relate It to other facts. You must give
them some conception of the hen's habit of hfe.
You must not allow your advice to farmers to
take the place of the training of farmers'
children.

I do not doubt but that all elementary educa-
tional work for country conditions Is yet very
crude and falls adequately to reach the mark.
On the other hand, I am convinced that we are
learning how. In the meantime It seems to me
that It Is your part as a teacher to endeavor
to put the country children, as much as possible,
directly Into touch with their environment in
order that they may understand It and apre-
. ciate It. I am quite sure that not all the com-
pensations of farming are In the shining dollars
of which you speak. Some of the compensa-
tion comes In a sympathetic appreciation of the
surroundings and the advantages that a farmer
has and may have; and the countryman cannot
be really successful until he arrives at this
appreciation. Of course, he must first of all
have the money, for this enables him to live;
but there are other rewards in life. If the

The Naturc-Stiuiy Idea 239

farmers do not appreciate all this, you must do
your work just the same, and wait.

You certainly are not alone in feelin^^ that
you cannot carry the children much heyond the
printed lesson. As you say, these suhjccts are
so new that there has been no opportunity for
adequate training in them. I think that the
best teacher I ever had along these Hnes was a
woman who knew very httle about the subject-
matter itself, but who encouraged me, answered
my questions as best she could, and told me
frankly when I had found out more than she
knew. I judge, however, that you quite under-
estimate your own knowledge, else you would
not feel so keenly the responsibility of your
work.

You can do a great deal outside the school
for your people. You can work through
farmers' organizations, attend farmers' insti-
tutes, help to organize boys' and girls' clubs,
reading clubs, help to put educational work in
the fairs, and in many other ways quicken the
rural life of your vicinity.

240 The Nature-Study Idea

How can a teacher prepare himself to teach
agriculture in the special schools that are now
being established?

Beyond pleasing personality and moral char-
acter, there are two powers that qualify a per-
son to teach : ( i ) the teaching ability, which Is
in part a natural quahty and in part gained by
experience; (2) knowledge of the subject-
matter.

The subject-matter can be acquired partly by
attendance at summer schools and by home
reading, but if you are Intending to fit yourself
for the best positions you will need to attend a
good college of agriculture. Even though you
are farm bred and know the practical business
of farming, you will need the college training
to give you a rational grasp of the field and to
enable you to put your abilities into teaching
form. For these best positions, you must take
nothing less than a full four-year course, for
you will have to compete with the regular
graduates of these Institutions; and four years'
training Is little enough to fit you In the fun-
damental sciences and arts, and to prepare you

Inquiries and Answers 241

in the modern agricultural subject-matter. For
those who cannot take full trainln;j[, the colleges
of agriculture offer short and special courses.

[I have given a full outline statement of
these questions in Bulletin \o. i, 1908, of the
United States Bureau of Education, under the
title, "On the training of persons to teach agri-
culture in the public schools."]

How can I do any nature-study work in the
ordinary kind of schoolroom?

School buildings are constructed for the work
that is known and recognized at the time of
their erection; so it follows that they may be
very poorly adapted to nature-work. If your
room or building is poorly adapted, you will be
obliged to shift as best you can, making the
most of unsatisfactory conditions. Vou should
not give up the work for that reason, "^'ou
may have room at one side or end for a table
on which you can place a terrarium and
aquarium and other things. You may have a
window or two in which It will be possible and
16

242 The Nature-Study Idea

advisable to grow plants. In some cases, the
children can germinate a few plants, or even
raise them to maturity, on their desks. You
may have a yard in which a little can be done
in gardening. If you have none of these pos-
sibilities, then you can encourage the pupils to
grow plants and to make their observations at
home (which they should do anyway) and
report the results in school. You can have
them bring In such specimens as do not require
to be kept, and then "clean house" frequently.
In the planning of new school buildings,
ample provision should be made for nature-
work. The need of this is particularly appar-
ent in the country schoolhouses. In rural
districts, we must have a new kind of school-
house. A room or wing should be added for
work with tools and with nature objects; or a
basement may be provided; or. In many district
schools In which the number of children has
decreased, one end of the old schoolroom may
be partitioned off for this purpose; or some good
outbuilding may be requisitioned. The school
premises of the new order must be provided

Inquiries and Answers 243

with good grounds, and these grounds should
grow many or most of the native trees and
shrubs of the neighborhood, becoming a httle
local park and a beauty spot.

We have talked much about new teachers,
but we need schoolhouses about as much as we
need new teachers. I suppose they will come
together. There is no use of evading the ques-
tion of better equipment. We must put more
money into our schools if we expect to make
them better. Schools are worth about what
they cost. We must not only have new pieces
of equipment, but a wholly new idea of ecjuip-
ment. We are to go back to the beginning
and do it all over again and begin naturally
and practically. Different kinds of things must
be put into schoolhouses from those that we
have been accustomed to put there (pp. 226-
235). We must put in them products and
implements, and make them express the life and
enterprises of the neighborhood. We must im-
prove not only the school and premises but we
need equally to interest the whole district or
constituency in the better things.

244 The Nature-Study Idea

It is not the teacher alone or the schoolhouse
alone that we need to Improve. We have talked
about the little red schoolhouse; but the little
red schoolhouse (as one of my farmer friends
puts It) is likely to contain the little green
teacher.

Is nature-study on the wane?

Real nature-study cannot pass away. 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
because 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 passing
out. 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

Inquiries and Answers 245

diluted and sugar-coated science. This will
pass. Some of it is mere scntlnicntalisin.
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 uiululy emphasized,
else they cannot gain a foothold In competition
with matters that are estabhshed. I-or a day,
some new movement is announced in the elaily
papers, and then, because we do not see the
headlines, 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 release; and
our need is the greater with every increasing
complexity of our lives.

Would you advise me to take up nature-study
teaching?

Yes, If you feel the "call" to it; otherwise,
no. I would have only those teachers teach
nature-study who are well qualilied for it, as I

246 The Nature-Study Idea

would advise for grammar or other school work.
Every teacher ought to have the nature-study
outlook to keep him young and Interested In
life, but we all recognize that relatively few
of them have It. 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.
After a time, we shall not need to argue for
nature-study. Teaching must In the end be
natural.

"^L

^fi

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