davis! NATURE-STUDY IN THE PRIMARY GRADES 103 



There arc at least two reasons for the irregularity just noted. 

 One is the lack of direct interest in nature on the part of the 

 teacher. If she teaches nature-study at all, she often gets her 

 information from books, or mechanically plans her lessons ac- 

 cording to a certain type familiar in primary lesson-plans. The 

 other reason is lack of proper sequence from grade to grade, and 

 year to year. 



It is my purpose here to discuss the organization of nature- 

 study for the primary grades (I— III), and to point out a few im- 

 portant principles which seem to me to underlie such a plan. In 

 presenting this I have in mind chiefly the needs of the smaller 

 school systems where no well planned work in nature-study is 

 undertaken. 



In the first place there should be a definite idea of the place and 

 use of nature-study in these grades. "Training the powers (?) of 

 observation" is most too vague; "learning to interpret nature" 

 except in very simple relations is too difficult; and "instilling in 

 the child a love of nature" is unnecessary for this love is already 

 there in some form or other. 



I have already indicated at another time 1 that two elements arc 

 greatly neglected in our elementary schools : (a) giving the child 

 new experiences, and (b) creating in him wholesome interests 

 < >utside of school hours. It is assumed that the experiences of the 

 child before school age and outside of school hours are sufficient 

 for him to understand whatever is presented to him in school. 

 As a consequence his use of words far outruns his knowledge of 

 their meaning. What they really represent may never come into 

 his life sufficiently for him to understand them. I appreciate 

 the fact that reading and language lessons are now planned to 

 come as far as possible within the experience of the average 

 child and that in this respect conditions are far better than a few- 

 years ago. But it must be apparent to every one interested in 

 primary education that in spite of these carefully planned and 

 well illustrated lessons they often go beyond the child's real 

 experience. I found, for example, that the children of a second 

 grade of a certain school in California knew the names of fourteen 

 birds. But these words and some of the pictures illustrating 

 them, and not the birds themselves, were the concrete objects to 



'B. M. Davis, "School Gardens," this journal, vol. 2, pp. 82-83. 



