M Ass] NA 7 URE-S TUD Y A XD SC/EA'CE TEA CHING 2 3 



But while this definition, or one like it, helps in defining the 

 aims of the nature-study work, it by no means furnishes all the 

 information needed by the teacher. We need a further working 

 hypothesis to guide in the selection of problems for the suc- 

 cessive grades, and to tell us the use of the solutions of the prob- 

 lems when they have been obtained. For science is not mere 

 skill in solving problems; but the facts learned in the process, 

 and the organized knowledge obtained from the work have an 

 added value of their own. Is there any suggestion that may 

 guide us in defining this side of the problem? 



The following, drawn from a study of the history of science, 

 is suggested as possibly defining the greatest use of the results 

 of scientific work to mankind, and hence also as defining the 

 ultimate use of this scientific knowledge to the individual. 

 This use does not lie in the increased physical comfort of life, 

 which is often ascribed to science; nor yet is this greatest service 

 of science to be found in our greater control of the forces of nature. 

 These are but the external signs of the results of the problem- 

 solving of science. The real use of these results of scientific 

 work is that of furnishing the mind with a concrete, ordered 

 basis for abstract, organized thought. The concrete pictures 

 of system, order, and organization, which result from the scientific 

 study of natural phenomena, are necessary to order, system, and 

 organization in the worlds of the intellect and the soul. Were the 

 natural world a physical chaos, the mind would be a mental 

 chaos, and the soul an ethical chaos. The fact that the modern 

 soul is somewhat of an ethical chaos is thus in part the reproach 

 of modern science teaching. 



This conception of the use of scientific knowledge may be 

 illustrated by many, many examples. Perhaps the most striking 

 is that of the establishment of the Copernican system of astron- 

 omv. This piece of scientific work may be said to be en- 

 cumbered with a minimum amount of practical use; but its use, 

 as furnishing a concrete picture of a system of order, organized 

 about a central body, which is the life of the whole, has performed 

 services of inestimable value in revolutionizing religious concepts, 

 — in fact, we may believe that the complete consummation 

 of the Reformation would have bean impossible without it. 



The idea underlying this conception of the use of scientific 

 work is verv similar to that on which Froebel bases his mother 



