400 NA T URE-ST UD Y RE VIE W [11 :9— Dec. , 1915 



What would be thought of a medical school which taught a lot 

 of miscellaneous facts about bones, but taught nothing about the 

 use the doctor would make of this knowledge in setting broken 

 bones, but should trust the medical students in some way to pick 

 this up later for themselves by experimenting on their first patients? 

 And yet this is exactly the position in which the Normal School 

 puts itself if it fails to teach its students how to teach nature- 

 study, but trusts them to find this out by experiments with their 

 first pupils. 



Among the essential features involved in the methods of teaching 

 are first, what to teach, and second how to teach. To answer the 

 question of what to teach requires a large view of subject matter, 

 an ability to organize this from the child's standpoint, a sympathe- 

 tic understanding of child life, and some actual experiences in 

 teaching children. To answer the question of how to teach 

 demands the requirements already mentioned and in addition 

 demands a knowledge of the ways by which the subject matter 

 can most effectively be brought to the child's attention. This is 

 all work for the expert and the Normal School should employ 

 experts in the various subjects to teach the students how to do 

 these things. To expect the Normal students to go out into the 

 schools and work out for themselves the method of teaching the 

 different subjects makes unreasonable demands of the teachers 

 and works an injustice on the children with whom they experi- 

 ment. 



The evidence from recent experiments in psychology shows that 

 training is specialized. Applying this principle to the training of 

 teachers it means first, that a knowledge of subject matter does not 

 give a knowledge of how to teach it; second, that general training 

 in methods and pedagogy does not give the Normal student 

 ability to apply this general method to special subjects and third, 

 that training in teaching one subject, such as arithmetic, does not 

 give one the ability to teach some other subject, such as nature- 

 study. So that, if it is desired that a student teach nature-study, 

 she must be taught how to teach nature-study and if it is desired that 

 a student teach arithmetic, she must be taught how to teach arith- 

 metic. 



That a general course in the fact side of Biology does not prepare 

 one to teach nature-study was clearly shown to the writer while he 

 was supervisor of nature-study in a system of city schools. Most 



