PATERSOX] PRESENT STATUS OF NATURE-STUDY 241 



"One of the chief objects of nature-study is to train the observa- 

 tion of children. It will increase the child's powers of expression 

 and train him to walk with open eyes." "Its purpose is to aid in 

 building up the child's mind by direct observation of the common 

 things in the child's environment. The child must have rich, 

 abundant, individual experience before it can come to a knowledge 

 of its inheritance, the race experience " 



It is useless to mulitiply citations. It is evident from the few 

 selected at random that there is considerable uniformity of purpose 

 in the minds of those who have planned the various nature-study 

 courses for the elementary schools of our country 



The second point considered was the material suggested in the 

 different courses. Here again there is a striking similarity, 

 plants, animals, weather phenomena and sky, physics and 

 chemistry, including soil are represented in all of the courses. 

 Plants and animals constitute the major portion of the courses. 

 On an average 38.2 per cent, of the topics in the courses examined 

 are based upon plant life; 34.4 per cent, on animals, and the 

 remainder about equally divided between sky and weather, and 

 physical and chemical phenomena. Plant topics arranged in the 

 order of the greatest ntmaber of times that they appear are as follows : 

 Trees, seeds and fruits, wild flowers, weeds, garden plants, farm 

 crops, fungous diseases, bacteria, weeds, plant structures, and 

 classification. 



The chief animal topics are as follows : Pets, birds, farm animals, 

 insects, wild animals, toads and frogs, fish, reptiles, poultry, earth- 

 worms, dairying, structure and needs of animals The favorite 

 topics under weather and sky are : — the keeping of simple weather 

 records, rainfall, winds, weather maps, movements of sun and 

 moon. Identification of a few stars and constellations. 



Topics based upon physics and chemistry are related largely to 

 the home or agriculture. Simple physics of the soil appears in all 

 but two of the State courses. Other topics are: vaporization and 

 condensation, heat, light, air, electricity, machinery, sound, 

 combustion, elements and compounds, acids, salts and alkalies. 



The city courses show about the same per cent, of biological 

 material as those of the state. A few of them, however, in the 

 upper grades give considerable attention to experiments in pure 

 physics and chemistry. 



