46 THE NA TURE-STUD Y RE VIE W u . 2 _ MB ., iqo 8 



is doubtless as well prepared as any to instruct the child concern- 

 ing himself. 



My argument is that we can best present this subject from a 

 comparative viewpoint and as nature-study material. I know 

 of no better approach to the study of human teeth than the 

 study of the dog, the squirrel and the horse as illustrating 

 different food habits and dissimilar dentition. 



We are best acquainted with our worst selves. We know 

 pleurisy but not the pleura; and tonsilitis but not the tonsils; 

 we cannot locate the vermiform until we have experienced 

 appendictomy. When men come to look at their own physical 

 selves as interestedly and as inquisitively as they examine into 

 any new phenomenon or into most ventures, then there will be 

 less of quackery and fewer who prey mercilessly upon the 

 ignorance and credulity of their fellow men. In other w r ords, 

 nature-study values apply to the study of the human bodv, and 

 it should receive fuller consideration from the w r orkers in this 

 field. 



X 



BY S. B. McCREADY 

 Macdonald Institute, Guelph, Ontario 



Nature-study is essentially an out-of-doors and out-of-school 

 study. W"e argue that it brings the out-of-doors into the school, 

 but that is only incidental. Its chief operation as that part of 

 nature's system of education recognized and used by the school 

 goes on in the individual boy away from his class and out from 

 the school. The schoolmasters have been too diligent in cutting 

 and fitting it into a piece with all the other pieces that go to 

 make up our courses of study. It is in danger of being organized 

 and systematized to death. It is forgotten that it is a reflection 

 of nature's education and "Nature, that dear old nurse," doesn't 

 give her beneficent training through systems nor does she ever 

 turn into a pedagogue. 



The quality of nature-study is not strained. It is not fever- 

 ishly impatient; it is not attempting the whole programme of 

 outlined study; it is not inciting far-fetched interests. It is 

 going about one's business or one's play soberly and patiently; 

 it is concerning itself with the simple things that meet us indoors 

 and at the doorsteps; it is making the near things the important 

 ones and the interesting ones. 



