328 



Proceedings of the Club 



discover that the 



apparently lifeless thing before them actually 



feeds, drinks and breathes, grows and moves, feels and acts, likes 

 and dislikes, enjoys and suffers, lives and dies. 



m I 



" In the examination of parts the following order, when prac- 

 ticable, will best conform with our fundamental principles : r. The 

 fruit ; 2. The flower ; both presenting qualities of color, form, 

 taste and smell, which, together or singly, first commend them to 

 the child's attention on the threshold of plant life investigation ; 

 qualities which correspond in some respect to the phenomena of 

 visible motion In animal life. 



" Descending by degrees from these upper and last products 

 of vegetable development, will be observed in succession, the leaf, 

 the stem and last the root. 



" In other words we must begin with facts of a primary order, 

 tending to develop attention, perception and observation. These 

 first facts, simple and detached, apparently unrelated, will of them- 

 selves lead to the observation of other facts, more' complex, more 

 and more intertwined and at last obviously related ; that is facts 

 of a higher order, tending to the exercise of judgment by com- 

 parison and consequent classification. When we shall have reached 

 this point, our minds will be ready for the discovery, by hiduction, 

 of still higher facts, imperceptible to our senses without the power- 

 ful aid of human reason, fully developed ; we shall be ready for 

 generalization. The whole philosophy of nature study— and we 

 may say the whole philosophy of teaching— lies in the obser\'ance 

 of this order. 



" It is essentially'the work of the teacher, who has reached tlie 

 point of developed reason, to classify her facts, so that her pupils 

 may without feeling her hand or her infiucnce, be made to look 

 for just such facts as are suited to their own Intellectual sta'^e 

 Aot so much on the variety or brilliancy of her illustrations, as 

 upon the natural, logical order in which she will imperceptibly 

 compel their observation of facts will depend her success." 



Miss Sanial added also an account of her experience as super- 

 visor of nature study in the vacation schools of New York City, 

 and indicated the difficulty at present confronting the subject on 

 account of lack of provision for supply of material. 



Miss Sanial's paper was followed by an extended discussion of 



