DISCUSSIONS 57 



"knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants", truly the grammar school pupil 

 of today knows far more than did the one in the corresponding grades in the 

 6o's; this would be evident to any unprejudiced investigator. Then knowledge 

 of geography consisted largely of ability to locate places on a map, "bound" 

 political divisions, etc.; and most mental pictures of towns, cities, rivers, 

 consisted of dots, stars, irregular lines as these were represented on maps. 

 Now pictures of scenery, descriptions of life of the people, including occupa- 

 tions, etc., have extended and vivified that knowledge with the effect of 

 greatly broadening the outlook. Not only that, but lest it may be claimed 

 by som; that all this is at a sacrifice of such knowledge as was formerly 

 gained, allow me to refer to what occured in our own city recently. A 

 grammar principal obtained a set of examination papers of fifty years ago, 

 including arithmetic, spelling and geography. The same questions were 

 given the pupils in all our grammar schools, with the result that the answers 

 were of a far higher average; and contained, moreover, a much smaller 

 number of those absurd blunders which come from memorizing language 

 without having adequate understanding of the thought. So much for the 

 "old time" geography. 



Now, what is Dr. Hornaday's object in nature-study? As far as maybe 

 gathered from his article, it seems to be the acquisition by the pupil of a cer- 

 tain store of facts concerning animals and animal 'life (?), although the latter 

 might be omitted by inference from his emphasis upon "zoological forms." 



For the moment accepting this as the chief object to be attained, is put- 

 ting a text-book into the hands of a pupil with supplementary exhibition 

 of "available objects" likely to secure this result? I recall too vividly 

 instruction of that sort in chemistry, in geologv, in botany during high-school 

 davs, to believe it; for that which was mainly "words, words" then has had 

 to be learned since as fact. I would not be understood as decrying the use 

 of books as sources of information, but they should be the supplement after the 

 objects or selected typical ones have themselves been studied so that the pupil 

 has some definite concepts in mind and so something to build upon, or center 

 new ideas about. The main difficulty in so using books, heretofore, and 

 will be for some time to come, is that we must train up a corps of teachers 

 who can themselves intelligentlv study the life about them and then supple- 

 ment their knowledge by that which others have gleaned and stored in books. 



No one surelv would take exception to Dr. Hornaday's emphatic state- 

 ment that "the pupil must be made to do the work," although most of us 

 would consider the compelling force to be the inherent interest of the subject 

 itself, not the teacher who introduces the subject and directs and helps the 

 pupils over difficulties. 



