2 o THE NA TURESTUD Y RE VIE W [ 4 : ,_ JAN ., iqo8 



has the faith in the possibilities of elementary science that Mr. 

 Macdonald has for Canada. And with the Macdonald Con- 

 solidated Schools, the Macdonald Institute at Guelph, and the 

 Macdonald College at Ste. Anne de Bellevue, all working to- 

 gether in demonstrating good methods and results and in training 

 teachers, Canada will outstrip us in this great work. We need at 

 least one Macdonald Institute in each State, and we need decent 

 nature-study facilities, equipment, laboratories and dignified 

 courses in nature-study in all our normal schools. These courses 

 should not be exclusively college science, which can result in 

 nothing better than futile attempts at teaching college sciences in 

 the public schools, they should be such practical "problem 

 solving" as will strengthen, inspire and prepare for teaching 

 nature-study. 



Much interest has been awakened by the establishment of the 

 Sage Foundation for the investigation of the causes of povertv in 

 this country. What larger and more widely disseminated 

 causes of poverty can we hope to discover than our tax for 

 preventable disease (about $3,000,000,000 annually), our bills 

 (unestimated) for patent medicines, our tax for insect damages 

 ($800,000,000 a year), our forest-product famine and the de- 

 vastating floods and fires on account of national ignorance of 

 forestry, our ruinous soil impoverishment, our wanton destruc- 

 tion of bird life, and many other drains on our national prosperity 

 equally unnecessary. Here are problems which lie sclose to the 

 life of the child and the home, problems of wholesome homes and 

 clean, living, problems of birds and insects, gardens, fields and 

 woods and pure water. These are problems which meet the 

 criterion, of basal and universal human interest which its must be 

 the function of a system of public education to begin to solve. 

 May our organization be the means of hastening and establishing 

 the good work. 



Ill* 



By C. R. MANN 

 The University of Chicago 



In launching this new organization for the promotion of the 

 interests of nature-study in the elementary schools, it is im- 

 portant to define as clearly and as definitely as is possible the 



*Abstract of Professor Mann's address. 



