The Teaching of Nature-Study 9 



impaled on a pin that we might suffer at being thrust through by a stake. 

 The insect nervous system is far more conveniently arranged for such an 

 ordeal than ours; and, too, the cyanide bottle brings immediate and pain- 

 less death to the insects placed within it; moreover, the insects usually 

 collected have short lives anyway. So far as the child is concerned, he is 

 thinking of his collection of moths or butterflies and not at all of taking 

 life; so it is not teaching him to wantonly destroy living creatures. 

 However, an indiscriminate encouragement of the making of insect col- 

 lections cannot be advised. There are some children who will profit by it 

 and some who will not, and unquestionably the best kind of study of 

 insects is watching their interesting ways while they live. 



To kill a creature in order to prepare it for a nature-study lesson is not 

 only wrong but absurd, for nature-study has to do with life rather than 

 death, and the form of any creature is interesting only when its adapta- 

 tions for life are studied. But again, a nature-study teacher may be an 

 opportunist; if without any volition on her part or the pupils', a freshly 

 killed specimen comes to hand, she should make the most of it. The 

 writer remembers most illuminating lessons from a partridge that broke 

 a window and its neck simultaneously during its flight one winter night, 

 a yellow hammer that killed itself against an electric wire, and a muskrat 

 that turned its toes to the skies for no understandable reason. In each of 

 these cases the creature's special physical adaptations for living its own 

 peculiar life were studied, and the effect was not the study of a dead 

 thing, but of a successful and wonderful life. 



THE LENS, MICROSCOPE AND FIELD GLASS AS HELPS IN NATURE-STUDY 



elementary grades, nature-study deals with objects which 

 the children can see with the naked eye. However, a lens 

 is a help in almost all of this work because it is such a joy 

 to the child to gaze at the wonders it reveals. There is no 

 lesson given in this book which requires more than a simple 

 lens for seeing the most minute parts discussed. An ex- 

 cellent lens may be bought for a dollar, and a fairly good one for fifty 

 cents or even twenty-five cents. The lens should be chained to a table 

 or desk where it may be used by the pupils at recess. This gives each 

 an opportunity for using it and obviates the danger of losing it. If 

 the pupils themselves own lenses, they should be fastened by a string or 

 chain to the pocket. 



A microscope has no legitimate part in nature-study. But if there is 

 one available, it reveals so many wonders in the commonest objects, that 

 it can be made a source of added interest ofttimes. For instance, to thus 

 see the scales on the butterfly's wing affords the child pleasure as well as 

 edification. Field or opera glasses, while indispensible for bird study, are 

 by no means necessary in nature-study. However, the pupils will show 

 greater interest in noting the birds' colors if they are allowed to make the 

 observations with the help of a glass. 



