12 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [i, i. jan. 1905 



sculptured on all the hills. Why may not such facts constitute 

 the theme of genuine nature-study, to the great and never-ceasing 

 profit and advantage of by far the larger part of our population ? 

 But however all this may be, it still remains, that in all our 

 nature-study we must take care that we so use the facts of nature 

 that our children learn to judge wisely and discriminate truth 

 from fancy and error, and any view or treatment of the natural 

 world which is inconsistent with the known methods and facts of 

 science will ever prove disastrous at the last, called by whatever 

 name, nature-study or not, no matter how lofty our professed 

 intentions, how noble the purpose we declare. 



IV 



BY PROFESSOR F. L. STEVENS, PH.D. 

 North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts 



With the subject so broad in scope, so indefinite in administra- 

 tion, so capable of variation, and withal so new, there is little 

 wonder that nature-study is misunderstood by many ; that it is 

 confounded with botany, zoology or geography on the one hand, 

 or with agriculture and studies of the industries on the other. It 

 is not surprising that attempts to define nature-study have failed, 

 that written definitions are as numerous as are writers upon 

 nature-study, and that conceptions of the subject are almost as 

 many as are the teachers who attempt nature-study. The vast- 

 ness of the subject leaves almost infinite liberty to the teacher in 

 the selection of matter. Hundreds of elementary courses could 

 be planned, yet not trespass upon one another. None of that 

 elimination, leading to mutual agreement as to the most desirable 

 topics, has yet occurred, as it has with such sciences as chemistry 

 and physics. These sciences, moreover, deal with fundamentals, 

 and it is a necessary consequence that one elementary course in 

 a given science is much like another in the same science. The 

 principles to be taught are the same, the method chiefly varies. 



Nature-study on the other hand does not deal with funda- 

 mentals. It concerns itself with details. Fundamentals are few ; 

 details are infinite. One of the chief differences between science 

 and nature-study rests upon these facts. They are fundamental 

 and they will operate to retard, if not to prohibit forever, any 

 rigidity in the nature-study outline. The great variation in sub- 

 ject-matter gives almost limitless plasticity to the course. 



