THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED TO ALL PHASES OF NATURE-STUDY IN SCHOOLS 



Vol. 5 September, 1909 No. 6 



NATURE-STUDY PAPERS FROM SOUTHERN STATES 



Six papers in this issue by writers living and working in South- 

 ern States have been collected by Professor F. L. Stevens, of the 

 North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. In 

 addition to these papers, the following have been held for a special 

 issue to be devoted to school-gardens: "School-gardens in 

 Louisville, Ky.," by Emilie Yunker of the Louisville Normal 

 vSchool; and "School Gardens in Elizabeth City County, Va.", 

 by Ellen Guy Lindsay. 



NATURE-STUDY IN THE SCHOOLS 



By W. J. McCONATHY 

 Louisville, Ky. 



"Whatever the school presents to its pupils constitutes the 

 educational environment through which it attempts to exercise 

 the mental and physical activities of the child. Ordinarily, the 

 school offers an environment consisting of a room, containing 

 merely some desks, a blackboard, a teacher, some books, slates or 

 paper and some pupils. Sometimes a few pictures are added for 

 aesthetic purposes. Very little attempt is made to exercise and 

 train any of the senses. The eye is used only to see the letters in 

 the book, and the ear to hear only the voice of the teacher. The 

 crude images the child has gathered for itself outside of the school 

 are relied upon to enable it to interpret the images presented by 

 the books. Consequently so much of the so-called reading 

 becomes a mere calling of words. 



Fortunately, some schools have greatly improved these condi- 

 tions by inaugurating a system of window gardens, yard-gardens, 

 out-door trips to parks, rivers, quarries and farms. In connec- 

 tion with these trips, they have made collections of objects illus- 



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