DISCUSSIONS 55 



pictures and books and believe them to be valuable adjuncts to a good course 

 in nature-studv, but unfortunately we are also aware of the fact that these 

 adjuncts are more often over used than underused. A teacher in one of the 

 public schools of our State (N. Y.) felt that she must complv with the new 

 svllabus and give a nature-study lesson on the hen. She therefore went to 

 her friends and asked them where she could find a good picture of a hen. 

 She was at last successful and fulfilled her obligation to the State by showing 

 the picture and getting the pupils to talk about it — and this when a five 

 minutes walk would have taken her class to a neighboring poultry yard. We 

 can assure Dr. Hornaday that in very many cases nine nature-study lessons 

 are given with pictures, talks and books, to one with a natural object or with 

 natural phenomena. If this is to be the character of our work it will not 

 take long to demonstrate its utter uselessness. For my part I sincerelv regret 

 that a naturalist has entered the lists apparently as a champion of the work of 

 little effort and of least worth. One who has studied the real animal as to 

 form, covering, movement, habit, structure or any standpoint whatever, has 

 come to knew that a picture is hardly more like the animal "all in all" than 

 a shadow is like the man who casts it. 



In justice to Dr. Hornaday we must note that he says his remarks are 

 devoted to the course for "pupils of reason and sense." Now perhaps one 

 of the chief functions of nature-study is to present vivid basal ideas to the 

 child, to give him material on which he mav profitably exercise and test his 

 growing powers ofreason. That these powers are neither developed nor 

 tested by books we may be most certain. Take a book like "Science and 

 Health" and see how beautifullv it tests the reasoning power of hundreds of 

 thousands of our American school-bred population. Note also a yet greater 

 number of "scholars" who todav uphold opinions or dogmas so diverse that 

 a portion of the public begins to doubt if any of them are true. Where have 

 been the men of "reason and sense" throughout the great warfare of science 

 from the time of Copernicus to the present day — in the majority or in the 

 minority? At what age do our children become "pupils of reason and 

 sense?' Let those who can, answer. But there is one thing this nation 

 needs today above all other things and that is MEN "of reason and sense" 

 and our schools must discover the kind of work in childhood that has done 

 most to develop such men and then give this work to our school children. 

 Good as thev may be, the study of geography, language and some other sub- 

 jects have never developed this power and as lately taught, never will. All 

 knowledge we now possess was obtained by some one at first hand through 

 observation. We do not wish to re -discover the field alreadv known, but 

 we do wish that we had more men with the mental power to do so. That 



