coulter] PRINCIPLES OF X. -IT C RE-STUDY 59 



apply I have no means of knowing. Of course the most obvious 

 weakness is the unprepared teacher. For the most part they are 

 not to be blamed, for the work has been thrust upon them, and 

 they arc more or less conscious of their helplessness ; and, 

 furthermore, quite a number of the reputed leaders in the subject 

 are distinctly " blind leaders of the blind."' 



Accepting the teachers, however, such as they are, my first criti- 

 cism of observed methods would be directed against what I have 

 been in the habit of calling " dead work " ; which means the obser- 

 vation of insignificant, trivial things ; work that means nothing 

 when it is done. I realize that many a teacher, through lack of 

 knowledge, is compelled to occupy the time with anything that 

 occurs to her, and is sometimes honest enough to call the exercise 

 " busy work." For example. I have seen period after period given 

 to a study of the forms of leaves, chiefly because the forms are 

 endless and illustrative material is easily obtained. 



A second criticism of observed methods is the attempt to arouse 

 a factitious interest in nature-study by all sorts of playful and 

 imaginative devices. Most of the books dealing with nature- 

 study cater to this tendency and perhaps are largely responsible 

 for it. These devices disgust strong children, just as does the 

 foolish and forced sprightliness of many primary teachers. 

 Nature-study, imbedded as it is in conventional education, is the 

 one chance for exact and independent observation, for cultivating 

 the ideas that between cause and effect there can be no hiatus, 

 that imagination is beautiful and most useful in its place but that 

 its place is never to lead to a misconception of facts, and that 

 there should be no playing fast and loose with truth. 



Passing from the statement of purpose and criticisms of ob- 

 served methods to a statement of principles, I would say that if 

 the purpose of nature-study is to keep functional the tentacles of 

 inquiry, it follows that a test of success is interest. It is evident, 

 therefore, that no science can be presented in any completeness or 

 in any definitely organized sequence, and hence the purpose must 

 be continuity of interest and not continuity of subject. The re- 

 sulting interest must be checked by the objects of interest, which 

 must be important, and so I reach my general thesis that nature- 

 study must look to a continuity of interest in important subjects. 



What are appropriate subjects? I would suggest an answer 

 under three heads: (1) Things of common experience. This 



