7 8 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [i. 2, march. 1905 



lower years of high schools is nature-study, as defined in the first 

 symposium, rather than study of the principles of natural sciences. 

 First, in explaining why the sub-title of this journal makes 

 special mention of elementary schools, it should be said that those 

 persons who were responsible for the initial steps towards organ- 

 izing the journal held as fundamental propositions the following : 

 (1) that nature-study and not natural science is the proper work 

 of elementary schools, (2) that high-school studies based on ele- 

 mentary-school studies of nature should be advanced to the intro- 

 duction of the elementary principles of natural science. Any 

 student of scientific education will be led to similar views if he 

 carefully examines nature-study and natural science in some of 

 the most progressive schools in this country. It is clear beyond 

 question that nature-study is and will be most prominent in ele- 

 mentary schools, and that the high-school work is decidedly in the 

 line of organized natural science. Furthermore, the most impor- 

 tant unsolved problems of scientific education naturally concern 

 the beginning work, which is in the elementary schools. For these 

 reasons The Nature-Study Review was designedly " devoted 

 to all phases of nature-study in elementary schools " ; but that 

 this primary purpose of the journal need not affect its usefulness 

 to high-school work in the line of nature-study will appear in the 

 following analysis of the relations of such work to that of the 

 lower school. 



With a good foundation of nature-study gained in the ele- 

 mentary school, it is reasonable to hold that all high-school science 

 should be primarily real science study, that is to say, it should be 

 close analytical and synthetical study of natural objects and 

 processes primarily for the sake of gaining acquaintance with 

 the general principles and methods of modern science. This is 

 now realized in the teaching of the physical sciences in many 

 high schools ; but on the whole the teaching of the biological 

 sciences is not well organized on the basis of scientific study of 

 principles. To a large extent the biological work of the first or 

 second year of our high schools must for the present give much 

 attention to nature-study (we commonly call it natural history), 

 because the pupils in the great majority of cases come to the high 

 schools with little or no knowledge concerning the common things 

 in nature around them ; and the high school must first of all take 

 up the work left undone in the elementary schools. I have 



