204 ^ NATURE STUDY REVIEW [9:7— Oct., 1913 



world. Right here Hes the educational advantage which the coun- 

 try boy has had in past generations. He has started with his feet 

 on the ground. 



Such experience is of the field, rather than of the laboratory. 

 The city boy may have it by going after it. Vast areas in which to 

 roam are, fortunately, not necessary. Indeed the country boy's 

 experience might be bettered if his method of acquiring it were less 

 desultory, less wasteful of his time : if instead of being left wholly 

 to his own devices he might have some help and guidance toward 

 making his random observations more connected and compara- 

 tive. 



Such are the limitations on our time when we do field work with 

 classes that we are forced to the opposite extreme of prescribing 

 definitely the work to be done and the records that shall be returned 

 in evidence of it. In the preceding article of this series, I have 

 made mention of certain optional studies which I shall use as 

 vehicles for spontaneity and originality of observation, even with 

 large classes. In this one I wish to speak of the kinds of records 

 required to be made when the work is done in classes. 



I find myself requiring four different sorts of field-work records 

 according to the nature of the work involved. These are ( i ) draw- 

 ings, (2) maps, (3) tables and (4) lists. These four are doubtless 

 familiar enough to every teacher, but there are probably many 

 teachers who have not fully considered their varying utilities. I 

 will discuss these briefly, beginning with the one most commonly 

 used. 



Drawings, and structural diagrams. — Drawings have the great 

 merit of forming, when well done, the most explicit possible record 

 of things seen. This is one reason why they are so much used in 

 the laboratory; but another reason is because they are easily 

 examined and criticized by an instructor. Furthermore, the 

 student, consulting his old records, finds that drawings bring vividly 

 to mind again the subject matter of studies past. Their limi tations 

 lie in the time consumed in making good drawings, in the danger 

 that time-serving tasks will be set because so easily planned and 

 assigned, and in the unequal distribution of talent for graphic 

 representation among the members of a class. Poor drawings that 

 do not show anything make the most abominable of records. Far 

 too much laboratory drawing is now required — especially too much 

 of the sort that is mere repetition of details. 



