52 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [i, 2, march, 1905 



results of these observations must replace much that is now given 

 in readings from the multitudinous so-called " nature-books." 

 All of which means that we have no better tool for the develop- 

 ment of the perceptive powers and bringing the child into sympa- 

 thetic relations with his surroundings than nature-study, when it 

 is nature-study pure and undefined. Where it is not, it had much 

 better be dropped from the course. 



II 



BY HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS, Ph.D. 

 Berkeley, Cal. 



Xature-study has developed in our schools as a result of im- 

 pulses from several different directions. On the one hand, we 

 can trace its beginnings through object teaching to Pestalozzi and 

 other educational leaders of the still more distant past, all voicing 

 the feeling that the child's education should deal more with things 

 and less with books. From another side has come the growing 

 influence of science in the university and high school also empha- 

 sizing the importance of contact with nature. 



While object teaching was formal and too often developed into 

 a lifeless talk about isolated objects, the scientific notions which 

 slowly filtered down into the elementary school frequently brought 

 with them methods and aims not adapted to the building up of 

 immature minds. 



These two chief sources of inspiration in the nature-study 

 movement differ very materially in their influence so that there 

 has arisen two ways, broadly speaking, of looking at the subject. 

 With one school of teachers the training and culturing of the 

 mental powers is held to be the chief aim ; with the others, the 

 acquirement of exact and systematized knowledge. 



The real differences, however, among those teachers who have 

 given the subject thoughtful attention are probably in most cases 

 not as great as they sometimes appear ; and I can not believe that 

 we are hopelessly adrift, but that there must be some unifying 

 principle underlying all the diverse ideas, not only as to what is 

 really meant by nature-study, but as to what its aims and values 

 should be. If this principle upon which we can all unite can be 

 brought into clearer light, it will go far toward placing nature- 

 study upon a rational basis. 



