28 THE NA TURE-STUD Y RE VIE W l3 : ,_ |AN , i igo7 



stealthv flank movements, chiefly at the expense of the teacher." The alle- 

 gation is well founded, and so long as schools shall last the instruction which 

 is worthy of the name will be "chiefly at the expense ot the teacher." 

 Successful nature-study will continue to deal with material within the expe- 

 rience and immediate environment of the child mind. The child will study 

 this material, rather than what some one has said about it; the material will- 

 be handled scientifically, in well chosen units, but from the child view-point, 

 not from the view-point of the trained scientist. 



"The weakness in nature-study" today is due to the lack of skilled teachers 

 in this work; the explanation lies in the fact that this is a book-trained gen- 

 eration, versed, is may be, in the "analysis" of flowers and in a classification 

 scheme for the animal kingdom, but helpless in the presence of a form not 

 mentioned in the books, unable to follow where "a little child shall lead 

 them." 



Northern Illinois State Normal School, rRED L,. CHARLES. 



DeKalb, III. 



VI 



Director Hornaday in his article, "The Weakness in Teaching Nature- 

 Study," fires a broadside of three pages in a manner that suggests, "There, 

 I have demolished everything that you have built. Now get to work and 

 build it anew as it should be." As I heard him banging awav at nature- 

 study, I felt like saying in the words of the small boy, "Never touched it." 

 And notwithstanoing the note by the editor, that the paper is "full of ideas 

 radically opposed to those commonly accepted by science teachers," I main- 

 tain that Professor Hornaday has shot completely over and beyond the mark 

 that he sets up in the beginning — nature-study. 



I do not think that the author has said anything against "nature-study." 

 And I am not wholly in agreement with the editor when he tells us that the 

 author has said a good deal that shouldn't be in accord with much of the work 

 of science teachers. Yet I have no disagreement with the spirit of either. 

 A confusion of terms, a failure to remember that there are always two sides 

 to the shield, and two points of view in our relation to nature, is the basis of 

 the author's claim that teachers are "groping in Egyptian darkness for the 

 method," and the editor's previous claim that "nature-study is still so dis- 

 organized." 1 I do not believe either theorem, but I do believe that, in the 

 confusion of false demonstrations, we can best get clear of the entanglements, 

 by going back to the axiomatic statements so ably set forth by Professor L. 

 H. Bailey in his book, "The Nature-Study Idea." First and always, the 



'[See I. of this series of discussions.] 



