Preface vn 



gone steadily on in the University, in teachers' institutes, in State summer 

 schools, through various publications and in correspondence courses. 

 Many have assisted in this work, notably Dr. W. C. Thro, Dr. A. A. Allen, 

 and Miss Ada Georgia. The New York Education Department with 

 Charles R. Skinner as Commissioner of Education and Dr. Isaac Stout as 

 the Director of Teachers' Institutes co-operated heartily with the move- 

 ment from the first. Later with the co-operation of Dr. Andrew Draper, as 

 Commissioner of Education, many of the Cornell leaflets have been written 

 with the special purpose of aiding in carrying out the New York State 

 Syllabus in Nature-Study and Agriculture. 



The leaflets upon which this volume is based were published in the 

 Home Nature-Study Course during the years 1903-191 1 , in limited editions 

 and were soon out of print. It is to make these lessons available to the 

 general public that this volume has been compiled. While the subject 

 matter of the lessons herein given is essentially the same as in the leaflets, 

 the lessons have all been rewritten for the sake of consistency, and many 

 new lessons have been added to bridge gaps and make a coherent whole. 



Because the lessons were written during a period of so many years, each 

 lesson has been prepared as if it were the only one, and without reference to 

 others. If there is any uniformity of plan in the lessons, it is due to the 

 inherent qualities of the subjects, and not to a type plan in the mind of the 

 writer; for, in her opinion, each subject should be treated individually in 

 nature-study ; and in her long experience as a nature-study teacher she has 

 never been able to give a lesson twice alike on a certain topic or secure 

 exactly the same results twice in succession. It should also be stated that 

 it is not because the author undervalues physics nature-study that it has 

 been left out of these lessons, but because her own work has been always 

 along biological lines. 



The reason why nature-study has not yet accomplished its mission, as 

 thought-core for much of the required work in our public schools, is that 

 the teachers are as a whole untrained in the subject. The children are 

 eager for it, unless it is spoiled in the teaching; and whenever we find a 

 teacher with an understanding of out-of-door life and a love for it, there we 

 find nature-study in the school is an inspiration and a joy to pupils and 

 teacher. It is because of the author's sympathy with the untrained teacher 

 and her full comprehension of her difficulties and helplessness that this book 

 has been written. These difficulties are chiefly three-fold: The teacher 

 does not know what there is to see in studying a plant or animal ; she knows 

 little of the literature that might help her; and because she knows so little 

 of the subject, she has no interest in giving a lesson about it. As a matter 

 of fact, the literature concerning our common animals and plants is so 

 scattered that a teacher would need a large library and almost unlimited 

 time to prepare lessons for an extended nature-study course. 



