5 8 THE XA TURE-S TIDY RE I YE W [2 . 2 - FHB ri arv, , 9 o(> 



from geyser to canon and away again behind six-horse teams, often 

 grumbling then that there is not a locomotive to whisk him about ; 

 and if he lingers at all by that lovely wayside, it is only to fish." To 

 how many of us will these words apply? How many of us have 

 uncles or cousins or at least neighbors who go touring in just this way, 

 who went through the Chicago Exposition thus, and repeated the per- 

 formance at St. Lo iis, all because they have lost the power of intelli- 

 gent enjoyment of things beyond their own little spheres ? 



With these industrial and esthetic conditions of our daily life before 

 us, the question narrows down to how they may best be met. Very 

 evidently this must be through the rising generation. The first course 

 in our chimney must be laid at the bottom. We need a quickening 

 towards nature in the country and among the children, not simply in 

 a few colleges and universities, and among a few nature lovers of the 

 city. We need something that will keep us open-minded and whole- 

 souled ; something that will enable us to become more effective citi- 

 zens because more intelligent in our command of those forces relat- 

 ing to the common things of life. These functions and more we claim 

 for nature-study. It gives the child the means of health ; it emanci- 

 pates him from fear and superstition ; it keeps his mind pure by giv- 

 ing it a healthy and natural content ; and, as Professor Tackman puts 

 it, " It should lead him to look things squarely in the face, to get at 

 genuine values — neither over nor under — and to be moral from prin- 

 ciple." 



To accomplish these results we must keep our work balanced. It 

 is very true that there has been too much fad and unattached emotion 

 in what has been called nature-study. But where the subject has been 

 entered into at all and has become anything more than another cram 

 and book study with little or no observation of any sort, it has been 

 beset with a new danger, that of undue emphasis on a single phase, to 

 the detriment of many other equally valuable things. The aim of 

 nature-study is simple enough. Mrs. Comstock puts it, " as primar- 

 ily to cultivate the child's power of observation and to put him in 

 sympathy with outdoor life." Bailey's chapter in "The Nature- 

 Study Idea," reduced to its lowest terms, defines it as an attempt to 

 relate education directly to the life that the pupil is to live. It is to 

 give him an intelligent sympathy with nature and his environment, to 

 the end that his life may be stronger and more resourceful. Hodge 

 in " Nature Study and Life " defines it as " learning those things in 

 nature that are best worth knowing to the end of doing those things 



