260 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



As a matter of fact, we are once more called upon to consider the 

 value or uselessness, the propriety or senselessness, the short or 

 farsightedness pertaining to omitting or incorporating nature- 

 studies into schools, adapted to the various public school grades, 

 as a part of the mental training and instruction given to our 

 children. Hand in hand with such instruction comes the for- 

 mation of small school museums, containing such nature material 

 of this country as will properly supplement the instruction given 

 along such lines; secondly, and in many ways associated with 

 those factors, should instruction be given in elementary gardening 

 and agriculture — the school children of all grades, according to 

 their ages, being actually instructed in such matters, as well as 

 brought to the practical side of it through the care and manage- 

 ment of school gardens. 



Finally, should all these children mentioned, according to the 

 various grades, be strongly encouraged by their parents or 

 guardians and their teachers to take their exercise in the woods 

 and fields, taking in, as a part of such exercise, swimming, rowing, 

 and tree and hill climbing, and while so engaged make studies and 

 collect specimens of the flowers and living things they have been 

 shown by their teachers, have handled in the school museums, and 

 read about in their nature books. As a part of such training 

 there should be instilled into their young minds, as they develop, 

 all that falls within the sphere of elementary instruction in such a 

 department, as the conservation of our national resources, as our 

 forests; such animals in nature as it is desirable to protect; our 

 national parks; our great water-falls, and similar attractions of the 

 nation as a whole. 



Those who advocate the introduction of all that has just been 

 pointed out above into the course of instruction now given in our 

 public schools by no means aim to do so at the expense of any of 

 the other lines of study, such as general history, geography, 

 mathematics, and the rest. All these questions are now being 

 discussed with the greatest earnestness in Washington by all 

 concerned, even by many of the children in the higher grades, 

 who take a most lively interest in the possible outcome of it all. 



If scientifically handled in all respects, it is claimed by the ad- 

 vocates of these added lines of endeavor and instruction in our 

 public schools that one of the most valuable and useful of human 

 faculties, one that makes more powerfully than any other for a 



