178 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [i, 5, sept. 1905 



cases they are used as though synonymous. In some one of the 

 terms is used throughout the course, and in several the work is 

 spoken of as nature-study in the primary grades and as science 

 in the grammar grades. 



While the science in the higher schools has to do with the 

 same phenomena as the nature work of the elementary school, 

 are the methods and aims the same in both cases? Is nature- 

 study another name for elementary science? Is it merely science 

 made simple, or does it express a fundamentally different con- 

 ception and aim ? 



An examination of the leading educational movements which 

 have been concerned in the development of the modern nature- 

 study idea would aid in answering these questions, but it cannot 

 be entered upon in detail in the present paper. It must suffice 

 to say that the influence of " object teaching" was in the direc- 

 tion of the general training of the mental powers, while that of 

 college and high-school science fostered exact and systematic 

 methods. 



Modern nature-study takes what is best in both these move- 

 ments. It is less formal and artificial than object teaching, and 

 attempts to lead the child directly to nature, rather than to take 

 nature to the child. The first thought is to bring about a familiarity 

 with, and a love for the world about us. and to develop in the 

 pupil self-reliance, reason and judgment in the presence of the 

 various physical problems of actual life, instead of presenting ab- 

 stract problems for solution. 



A simple understanding of the meaning of the common facts 

 about us as they are related to our every-day life is very far from 

 being consciously organized and classified knowledge. The for- 

 mer is suited to the child's needs, his capacities and his interests. 

 Science as such does not appeal to him, and the attempt to use 

 its methods has brought the study of nature into disrepute in 

 numberless instances. One cannot help but be impressed while 

 examining courses of study from all over the United States, with 

 the feeling that many of them have been planned from the 

 standpoint of the scientific student rather than from that of the 

 child. The courses are filled with a multitude of topics from every 

 science, as though the number presented was the important thing. 

 It seems as though the idea was widely current that it would not 

 do to let the child leave the grammar school without having 



