24 THE TEACHING BOTANIST 



Nature Study is a part) in the lower schools, where 

 the principal facts, phenomena, and terminology, of 

 Physics, Chemistry, Botany, etc., will be learned at 

 first hand, thus forming the best possible basis for 

 the study of some one of those subjects as a Science 

 in the high school or of others in the college. In- 

 deed, from all points of view, Nature Study, in order 

 to be really effective, needs to be thorough, consider- 

 able in amount, and unbroken from kindergarten to 

 high school. It is only thus that the natural induc- 

 tive faculties of children can be preserved intact, 

 not to mention improved, through their school life. 

 Of course the principle of selection of certain Sci- 

 ences to be taught in the smaller high schools will 

 in time lead to a similar selection of Languages, 

 whereby fewer of these being taught, the burdens of 

 the school will not be increased by the proper teach- 

 ing of the Sciences. And this selection of fewer sub- 

 jects for better teaching will be rendered the easier 

 because of the more uniform requirements toward which 

 the colleges are all tending. 



The third objection, that early specialization is bad, 

 is based, as I think, upon a wrong idea of it. Spe- 

 cialization is by no means a selfish isolation in a nar- 

 row line of interests, but rather it consists in making 

 one's greatest interest the axis for the grouping of 

 the others. The conditions of modern life have set- 

 tled it for us that the only well-educated man is a 



