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Vol.11 November, 1915 No. 8 



The Organization of Nature-Study 



John Dearness 



The time-honored subjects of the public school curriculum seem, 

 for teaching purposes, to have been easily organized and at the 

 first in nearly the same way in which they are now pursued. In 

 view of this fact, or what seems to be fact, the question is asked: 

 Why does the organization of Nature-Study make so little progress 

 or no progress ? The question indicates that the questioner proba- 

 bly does not understand the nature of Nature-Study. Increase of 

 knowledge and development of mental power may closely inter- 

 relate but the expert student of education easily distinguishes them. 

 Now knowledge subjects, history and arithmetic for example, — 

 could be organized, probably were organized, along lines of 

 chronological or logical sequence, without regard either to the 

 circumstances of the learner, or the methods of the teacher. But 

 in nature-study, where the choice of material must be conditioned 

 upon the environment and experience of the learner, and the 

 efficacy of its use upon the methods employed by the teacher, it is 

 impossible to devise a graded course of study like the one in arith- 

 metic or history, suited to the schools of a whole state. The rela- 

 tions of fractional quantities have always been, will always be, 

 considered less elementary than the corresponding relations of 

 integral quantities but for the purposes of nature-study it cannot 

 be said that the study of a geranium is simpler or more difficult 

 than the study of the moon or that either is suited to the second 

 grade and the other to the fourth. That was a fertile thought of 

 Dr. L. H. Bailey's — the one in which he stated in effect — that 

 when the teacher is thinking more of his subject he is probably 



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