The Teaching of Nature-Study 17 



takes made in them, so transformed as to be unrecognizable, may be used 

 for drill exercises in grammatical construction. After all, grammar and 

 spelling are only gained by practice and there is no royal road leading to 

 their acquirement. 



THE CORRELATION OF NATURE-STUDY AND DRAWING 



I HE correlation of nature-study and drawing is so natural 

 and inevitable that it needs never be revealed to the 

 pupil. When the child is interested in studying any ob- 

 ject, he enjoys illustrating his observations with draw- 

 ings; the happy absorption of children thus engaged is a 

 delight to witness. At its best, drawing is a perfectly 

 natural method of self-expression. The savage and the young child, 

 both untutored, seek to express themselves and their experiences by 

 this means. It is only when the object to be drawn is foreign to the in- 

 terest of the child that drawing is a task. 



Nature-study offers the best means for bridging the gap that lies 

 between the kindergarten child who makes drawings because he loves to 

 and is impelled to from within, and the pupil in the grades who is obliged 

 to draw what the teacher places before him. From making crude and 

 often meaningless pencil strokes, which is the entertainment of the young 

 child, the outlining of a leaf or some other simple and interesting natural 

 object, is a normal step full of interest for the child because it is still self- 

 expression. 



Miss Mary E. Hill gives every year in the Goodyear School of Syracuse 

 an exhibition of the drawings made by the children in the nature-study 

 classes; and these are universally so excellent that most people regard 

 them as an exhibition from the Art Department ; and yet many of these 

 pupils have never had lessons in drawing. They have learned to draw 

 because they like to make pictures of the living objects which they have 

 studied. One year there were many pictures of toads in various stages in 

 this exhibit, and although their anatomy was sometimes awry in the pic- 

 tures, yet there was a certain vivid expression of life in their representa- 

 tion; one felt that the toads could jump. Miss Hill allows the pupils to 

 choose their own medium, pencil, crayon, or water-color, and says that 

 they seem to feel which is best. For instance, when drawing the outline 

 of trees in winter they choose pencil, but when representing the trillium 

 or iris they prefer the water-color, while for bitter-sweet and crocuses they 

 choose the colored crayons. 



It is through this method of drawing that which interests him, that the 

 child retains and keeps as his own, what should be an inalienable right, a 

 graphic method of expressing his own impressions. Too much have we 

 emphasized drawing as an art; it may be an art, if the one who draws is 

 an artist ; but if he is not an artist he still has a right to draw if it pleases 

 him to do so. We might as well declare that a child should not speak 

 unless he put his words into poetry, as to declare that he should not draw 

 because his drawings are not artistic. 



