THE RELATION OF NATURE-STUDY AND SCIENCE 



TEACHING 



[Editor's Note. — This' is a series of discussions in answer to the ques- 

 tion, "Should nature-study for elementary schools be differentiated 

 from science for higher schools ?", presented at the first meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Nature-Study Society, January 2, 1908. It is evident that upon the 

 answer to this question will depend the outlining of the field of work for 

 the new Society. The practical conclusions to be drawn from a summary 

 of all the discussions are that: (1) In method nature-study for young 

 pupils must resemble in an elementary way that of more advanced science. 

 (2) In selection of materials differentiation is advisable but not funda- 

 mentally necessary. (3) In organization of facts to be taught there is a 

 fundamental difference in that nature-study must keep close to every- 

 day life and neglect the technical aspect, that is, the characteristic scientific- 

 organization of science in the strict sense. (4) There is obviously a 

 tendency towards setting a somewhat arbitrary limit to the most im- 

 portant field of nature-study in the late years of the grammar school near 

 the borderland of the high school ; but there is at the same time a strong 

 tendency towards applying the nature-study point of view to high- school 

 science. Obvious with such conceptions of nature-study the field of the 

 new Society is primarily that of studies of nature in elementary schools; 

 but also there is a point of contact with high-school science, and possibly 

 with the so-called popular nature-study for those adults who prefer to 

 know things from the nature-study point of view as distinguished from 

 the technical science point of view.] 



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By STANLEY COULTER 

 Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind. 



To those of us who have dealt with nature-study from a 

 practical, rather than from an academic viewpoint, it has seemed 

 a long journey through the stage of definition-mongering and 

 material-peddling to the present conception of its significance 

 and recognition of its pedagogic value. It is very doubtful, 

 indeed, if any modern educational movement has been so 

 hampered by definition, so obstructed by material, so deflected 

 by sentimentalis'm. It is an evidence of the vital quality of the 

 movement that, in spite of these obstacles, it has not been entirely 

 driven from the schools, but has on the contrary gained a firm 

 foot-hold in many educational centers. 



It is at present a matter of substantially unanimous agreement 

 that nature-study is not a subject with fixed and definite material 



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