hodge] NATURE-STUDY AND SCIENCE TEACHING 17 



to answer this question, with which some of you are familiar 

 must excuse me this afternoon for passing over this fundamental 

 subject with but a single word. The "matter" with nature- 

 study, as I find it everywhere in schools and in books and 

 courses, lies at the bottom in the lack of vital relation between 

 the subject-matter selected and the life of tha child and the 

 home or community. I cannoc endure any of this talk, some of 

 which we have heard here today, that "material is incidental." 

 "Teach anything you are interested in, fellow teachers, one 

 thing is just as good as another." A leader in some section of the 

 country begins to preach this doctrine, and I am certain to hear 

 the Macedonian cry : "Come over and help us." 



The truth is we are face to face with the deepest problem in 

 education, the problem of feeding the human soul and mind 

 during the period of its active growth. It is the time when the 

 child's philosophy of life must be built into its organization by 

 the subject-matter and methods of its education. This philosophy 

 of life must unite the child witli its race and make it fit to take 

 a place in the social order. Hence it is not sufficient to say 

 that subject-matter selected must be of interest to the individual 

 child. The course must go deeper than that and embody the 

 fundamental and universal interests of the social organization. 

 Some courses of nature-study have brought vividly to my mind 

 the picture of feeding a baby "water- worn pebbles" with a 

 spoon. As well, yes, even better, say, gravel, "sow-thistles and 

 brambles" are as good as milk to feed babies on, as to say that 

 one thing is as good as another for nature-study. We must all 

 realize, when we think seriously about it, that there are a few 

 things which every man, woman and child in a civilized community 

 ought to learn for dear life, and that there are thousands of other 

 things which it makes little difference whether the majority of 

 good people ever hear about at all. To discover what those 

 things are in the natural environment which condition the 

 health and happiness of the individual, the wholesomeness and 

 beauty of the home, the efficiency of each to do his or her part for 

 the best good of the whole is, I take it, the function of this 

 organization. 



Our attention has been directed to possible distinctions be- 

 tween science and nature-study. I am in full accord with the 

 carefully prepared paper of our Secretary that classified and 



