NATURE-STUDY AS AN EDUCATION ■ 



BY MARY PERLE ANDERSON 



Research Student at the New York Botanical Garden and Teachers College, Columbia 



University 



During the last score of years, nature-study has been exploited in 

 this country in various ways. It began as an off-shoot of the so- 

 called object-lessons, such as were introduced by Dr. Sheldon into 

 the Oswego Normal School and received further stimulus in the Cook 

 County Normal School under Dr. Francis Parker and Mr. W. S. 

 Jackman. The latter attempted the first formulation of nature-study 

 as a distinct subject, and prepared a text-book of numerous isolated 

 suggestions for the teacher, these suggestions ranging through many 

 subjects and sometimes going far afield; but still the key-note of the 

 book, as stated by the author, rings out strong and true: "Let us 

 place the children in the woods and fields that they may study nature 

 at work." 



About the same time (1889), Mr. Arthur C. Boyden of the 

 Bridgewater Normal School, championed the new idea, began teach- 

 ing in the state-institutes of Massachusetts, and published a pam- 

 phlet on the "Study of Trees in Plymouth County;" one of the first 

 of a long series of fluttering nature- study leaflets by men and women 

 who, knowing much or little or nothing at all about the subject, have 

 found the theme a good one to write upon. At the same time, also, 

 a department of nature-study was organized in the Summer School 

 of Cottage City under the name of elementary science. In the 

 latter part of the eighties, nature-study under the name of elemen- 

 tary science was receiving consideration in many schools in several 

 states. 



From 1890 to 1895 exhibits of nature-work were common in 

 cities, the display at the World's Fair in Chicago being the culmin- 

 ation of this phase of development. 



About ten years after the introduction of elementary science into 

 the grades, two men came forward to whom children will be grateful 

 for centuries to come. Of all the numerous writers who have con- 



'Read before the Convention of the New York Botanical Garden, January 23, 

 1907. Published simultaneously in the Journal'' of the New York Botanical Gar- 

 den and The Review. 



