The Present Trend of Nature-Study in Wisconsin* 



*Presented at the Annual Meeting, The American Nature-Study Society. 



Fred T. Ullrich 



The spirit of education of the present age as reflected in the 

 current educational periodicals, recent pamphlets and books 

 and by the graduate courses in education in our universities and 

 normal schools is to solve educational problems by the study of 

 data made available in the operation of the various aspects of 

 our great educational institutions. It is only by the collecting 

 of this data, recording the same, noting the general tendencies 

 and drawing conclusions, with many repetitions of these steps 

 for each problem and invariably coming to the same conclusions 

 that it is possible to make educational procedure scientific. 

 Unless this is done it is not possible to get definite and reliable 

 principles of education, but only "an unsettling of educational 

 practices with the advent of each new philosopher. It is with 

 this basis as a conviction, that this study, the present trend of 

 Nature-Study in Wisconsin, was attempted. 



It would undoubtedly be of interest to know the present trend 

 of Nature-Study in every state and territory in the union, but it 

 is of peculiar interest to know this situation in Wisconsin. It 

 is fair to assume that the introduction of vocational education 

 into many of our schools has greatly modified the content and 

 method of instruction in the old time subjects. Some of the 

 questions that are being asked by those who are genuinely in- 

 terested in the permanency of Nature-Study in the curriculum 

 and are convinced of its indispensability in the best instruction 

 of boys and girls in the elementary school are: What is the re- 

 lation of Nature-Study to vocational training? Has the con- 

 tent of Nature-Study undergone any modification due to the 

 introduction of vocational training? Should not the con- 

 tent of the subject be subjected to greater modification than is 

 evidenced in our Nature-Study literature? There is no state in 

 the central part of this country where suggestions in answer to 

 these questions should be more significant or potent than in 

 Wisconsin. 



In the year 191 1 a law was placed on the statute books of this 

 state which provided for the establishment of industrial, com- 

 mercial, continuation, and evening schools. According to this 



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