johnsonj NATURE-STUDY 245 



experience. As a consequence he was much at a loss to know how 

 to understand it. The problem was solved by taking the students 

 back to the ground with which they were familiar and proceeding 

 thence into the unexplored territory. 



A second reason is quite as valid as the above. The animal or 

 plant to the child mind is as much a unit as a single celled protozoan. 

 There are no more parts of a frog in the estimation of the novice 

 than the scientist sees in the single celled animal. We would suggest, 

 without depreciating the study of anatomy and histology in their 

 proper sphere, that the preservation of the idea of the unity of the 

 organism is of considerable importance. In practical experience and 

 for all purposes which serve a general human interest it must be con- 

 sidered as such. This is not saying that the child should not be 

 taught that a plant has leaves, stem and root; or that a bird has 

 feathers, feet, beak and wing; but that the essential unity should not 

 be lost to view. This view maybe best preserved, perhaps, by dwell- 

 ing on the purpose of each part in the life of the organism. 



All of these considerations point to the conclusion that nature-study 

 must to a very large degree be a local problem. It must be solved 

 for each locality, and modified to suit each school district. This is 

 one of the reasons, at least, why no general course of study has been 

 universally successful. They have been arranged on popular and 

 scientific plans. They have been logical and consecutive or 

 heterogeneous. They have been easy and difficult. While most of 

 them have been helpful and useful, none of them can be termed suc- 

 cessful in the same sense that we would apply the word to text-books 

 on any other subject in the curriculum. 



The rest of the subject very naturally divides itself into the questions 

 of the teacher's equipment and the course of study. 



In the former case will it be trite to say that it cannot be too large? 

 We would hesitate to say this, were it not an altogether too common 

 thing for education to be required in-every other subject and to assume 

 that nature-study may be taught without training, without equipment 

 and without leadership. We have been surprised that the shores of 

 our educational seas have been strewn with the wrecks of this par- 

 ticular kind of educational craft. On the other hand ought we not to 

 wonder that so many have come safely into port? Sailing as they 

 have without chart, compass, or pilot and in many cases without even 

 a rudder; blown about by every wind of doctrine and becalmed in 

 the belt of perplexity, is it not a marvel that we have saved so much ? 



