"BOOMING" NATURE-STUDY 



By M. A. BIGELOW 



Teachers College, Columbia University 



Several recent letters have expressed the opinion that the 

 organization of the Nature-Study Society will "boom" nature- 

 study. Let us hope that it will not. "Booms" in the business 

 world are due to purely artificial stimulation and not to natural 

 growth. They are mushrooms both in rapid development and 

 in ephemeral existence. No, we want no "booms" in the nature- 

 study movement. In fact we have had too many already — so 

 many that in certain quarters there is a decided prejudice against 

 nature-study. And we have had other "booms" in school work, 

 e. g., vertical penmanship and "physiology." The advocates 

 of nature-study should not try to repeat such history. 



The proposed constitution of the American Nature-Study 

 Society reads as follows in Article i : "The objects of the Ameri- 

 can Nature-Study Society are, by publications and by national 

 and by local meetings, (i) to promote critical investigation of all 

 phases of nature-study (including all studies of nature for element- 

 ary schools) ; and (2) to work for the establishment in schools of 

 such nature-study as has been demonstrated valuable for element- 

 ary education." This does not suggest "booming" nature-study. 

 On the contrary, it suggests that the Society is dominated^by a 

 group of conservative students of education who recognize that 

 nature-study still has problems — very serious ones — which must 

 be settled before sure progress can be made; and also it definitely 

 disclaims any intention of pushing any phase of nature-study 

 before its educational values and practicability are on a sure 

 basis. 



The new society should not adopt the methods of the "nature- 

 study enthusiasts" who sometimes forget to take a well-balanced 

 view of things. We who are naturalists in vocation or avocation 

 must remember that, after all, naturalists represent compara- 

 tively a rare variety of the human genus, and our own outlook 

 on the world may be quite unintelligible to a large majority of 

 our intelligent fellow men. We must, therefore, move carefully 

 -and not attempt to force our own views of things upon those not 



