4 o THE NA TURE-STUD Y RE VIE W u . ,-feb., 1908 



advocate that organized science should be left for college surely 

 have forgotten the fact that the vast majority of intelligent 

 citizens can not have the advantages of college education. 



Summarizing the whole matter: Nature-study educationally 

 organized is beyond question best for the elementary school. 

 Introductory science, scientifically organized on the educational 

 basis of nature-study, is the ideal for the secondary school. 

 Here are two points of view, the scientific and the educational, 

 strict science and nature-study, each with something important 

 for all liberal education involving studies of nature. The method 

 of study is fundamentally the same, but should be modified to 

 suit the advancing maturity of the child's mind; the materials 

 for study are drawn from the same source, the nature around 

 us, but may be selected and graded without exhausting the 

 supply; the point of view is the fundamental difference — 

 scientific versus educational organization, real nature-study 

 versus strict science. 



It must be evident from the above discussion that the problems 

 of the relation of elementary-school nature-study and high- 

 school science teaching involve differentiation chiefly in organiza- 

 tion of facts to be taught, but in all other respects the relating of 

 nature-study to elementary science is chiefly a question of adapt- 

 ing essentially the same method of study to pupils of advancing 

 stages. However, the difference in organization of facts is 

 educationally of sufficient importance to justify the term "nature- 

 study" for very elementary work without the great principles of 

 modern science. 



Here, then, is the field for our new society: To develop a 

 general appreciation of the nature-study point of view, the direct 

 human interest point of view; to organize educationally on this 

 basis the studies of nature in the lower school ; to avoid un- 

 necessary duplication of the proper work of the higher schools 

 and, without departing in the least from the nature-study idea or 

 point of view, to pave the way for introduction to science prin- 

 ciples in higher schools; to adjust nature-study to coming high- 

 school science based on the nature-study 'point of view; and to 

 work for the training of teachers who can apply the nature- 

 study idea — thus, in the broadest outlines we may now view the 

 purposes and the outlook for the future activity of the American 

 Nature-Studv Societv. 



