394 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:9— Dec, 1915 



supplement their first hand knowledge. Another value of this 

 hand to hand contact is that through it the students catch the 

 nature-study spirit. One of the joys that comes to the teacher of 

 these students is to watch the transformation that takes place, to 

 see one after another of these would-be teachers awaken to the 

 world of interest about them, to an appreciation of the common 

 things of daily life. When a student receives this baptism of the 

 nature world then we know that nature-study teaching as far as 

 she is concerned is likely to be in safe hands. 



A third value of the study of material is that the students, by 

 imitation, are getting some idea of the nature-study method. 

 However, there comes a time when direct attention to method 

 should be given in order that the student may become conscious 

 of the steps that they take in covering a series of lessons comprising 

 a unit. Analysis of such a series shows usually three distinct 

 phases: first, the concrete which includes observation, investiga- 

 tion, experimentation and creative activity; second, the informa- 

 tional which includes knowledge gained at first hand or upon 

 authority; third, the socializing which includes not only the 

 broadening of the student's horizon but the relation of the topic 

 under consideration to history, to literature, or to the life of the 

 com rr unity. 



In training teachers the children who are to be taught must be 

 considered as well as the material and method. The students 

 should in some measure get the viewpoint of children. They 

 should realize that they cannot teach trees, or birds, or gardening to 

 primary children as they would to boys and girls of intermediate 

 or grammar grades, that in each case freedom and individual 

 initiative must be allowed so that as far as possible the problems 

 raised will be those of the children not of the teacher. Here is 

 where the so-called model lesson has a place. 



The model lesson may be written after it has been taught and 

 the reaction of the children secured, so that it may with some degree 

 of security be used by another teacher who wishes to teach the 

 same material to a similar grade of children, or it may be an oral 

 lesson taught in the presence of the students. The latter is no 

 doubt of greater value than the former since the student not only 

 witnesses the presentation of the lesson by the teacher but the 

 questions, the responses, and the interest of the children. I am 

 of the opinion that the observation of the isolated model lesson 



