94 THE NA TURE-STUD Y RE VIE W [ 2 . 3 -march, 1906 



each of these subjects is concerned, and then make the correlations 

 which do not interfere with the general scheme of either subject. 

 Such correlations will nine times in ten necessarily be made by adjust- 

 ing the manual training to nature-study, for the following reasons : 

 Nature-study, as it is interpreted by the present leaders, is directly 

 based on materials from nature and is therefore bound by nature's 

 time and order of supplying such materials. Nine-tenths of the most 

 valuable nature-study is determined by the order of the seasons, and 

 materials must be studied when the natural progress of things makes 

 them available and not when some arbitrary school program calls for 

 them. It is conceivable that some teachers might have good reasons 

 for placing such work as making paper envelopes for seeds or stakes 

 for garden beds in some year or part of a year other than that which 

 is most naturally connected with the nature-study. If in such a case 

 the manual training cannot be adjusted to the nature-study, then let 

 both subjects be conducted each for its own sake and without thought 

 of making direct connections between them. In a case where in a 

 primary grade the nature-study might suggest making something which 

 involves manual training principles not yet known to the pupils, do not 

 anticipate the manual training. For example, in some schools a 

 study of birds in the first grade might suggest building bird-houses ; 

 but anything resembling a satisfactory bird-house would certainly 

 involve manual training operations too difficult for such young pupils. 

 For this and other reasons I would get around this particular diffi- 

 culty by studying birds in a grammar grade as well as in a lower grade, 

 and the older pupils might make an interesting connection between 

 their nature-study work of birds and their manual training work. 



In passing, let me call attention to the bird-house as another 

 example of nature's order determining the adjustment of nature-study 

 and manual training. The time to build a bird-house is, of course, 

 in the late winter, just before the birds are expected to arrive and 

 occupy such houses, and not in the autumn term when there can be 

 little natural interest in bird-houses. 



In discussing correlations between nature-study and manual train- 

 ing we should not ovei look the primitive-life studies which have become 

 prominent in many schools. These studies appear to be an attempt 

 to make elementary education at bottom active education, and hence 

 manual training is prominent in them. Some educators have enthusi- 

 astically looked upon primitive-life studies as affording a unifying 

 principle for primary education, and certainly some interesting cor- 



