Proceedings of the Club 



December 13^ 1898. 



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Vice-President Allen in the chair, thirty-five persons present. 



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Three new members were elected; two new nominations for 

 membership were made : Mrs. Horace See, 50 W. 9th Street, and 



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Daly. 



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ture Study in the Public Schools. The following is an abstract; 



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' The introduction of nature study in the lower grades o 



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public school is a new departure in elementary education. Of 

 course, it is not intended to teach natural history as a science to 

 children of a tender age. The purpose in view is simply to draw 

 from nature certain object lessons calculated to aid in the orderly 

 development of the perceptive and reasoning faculties. The 

 method o!" instruction should rest upon two fundamental principles 



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fully established by the observed facts of psychology. One is 

 the fascinating power of visible motion upon the child's mind. 

 The second, intimately connected with the first, is the natural proc- 

 of mental development. This process, consisting as it does 

 observation and comparison, is essentially analytical and is, 

 therefore, the very reverse of the constructive or synthetical pro- 

 cess of nature herself. While nature proceeds in her work from 



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the low and apparently motionless forms to gradually higher ones 



gifted with increasing powers of displacement, the human 



mind 



proceeds in its observation from the highest and most active to 

 the lowest and most passive. The first object lesson should, there- 

 fore be taken from the animal world and from those plants which , 

 by their bright colors, rapid development and other striking 

 features, are most suggestive of motion. If her material be taken 

 from the vegetable world, for instance, the teacher should make 

 such use of it or devise such artifices as will enable the pupils to 

 see, follow and observe " the plant in action," so that their inter- 

 est may steadily increase as they successively and spontaneously 



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* Omitted by mistake from its proper sequence in the last number. 



( 327 ) 



