guyer] FUNDAMENTAL XEEDS IN NATURE-STUDY 115 



ing the university is much more immature and undisciplined 

 mentally than the beginning university student of Germany who, 

 in fact, has had his formal disciplinary work largely completed 

 in the gymnasium. 



As applied in nature-work in this country, the deplorable 

 effects of the lecture system are seen in the great prevalence of 

 the telling of facts and the reading of stories to children by 

 teachers who have the mistaken idea that they are thus teaching 

 nature-study. Whereas, the keynote to the nature-work is not 

 primarily what facts are learned but how they are learned. A 

 certain amount of fact-telling is, of course, necessary, and we may 

 admit that the story if used judiciously may be made a valuable 

 adjunct to the work. It is valuable, though, chiefly in so far as 

 it stimulates the child to independent inquiry, and thus while it 

 may become an excellent appetizer, the teacher certainly should 

 not mistake the condiment for the substantial part of the dinner. 



Another unfortunate tendency manifested in some of our 

 universities is the putting of inexperienced men in charge of 

 beginning courses. They are cheaper! Thus the most vital 

 work of all, work that should command the careful attention of a 

 skillful teacher, is turned over to the neophyte. When this ex- 

 perimenter has begun to learn something about how to teach 

 and incidentally requires more salary, he is replaced by another 

 recruit, doubtless of unquestionable ability as a student, but 

 crude and unshaped as a teacher. It is little wonder that the 

 products of such tutelage when graduated perpetrate frequent 

 pedagogical enormities on children. Happily, there seems, at 

 present, to be a movement on the part of some institutions to 

 remedy this very serious fault. 



While the success of nature-work must ultimately rest on the 

 merits of the teacher, there are a number of accessory factors 

 which are scarcely of less importance in determining the status 

 of this work in our common schools.. To the writer, the nature- 

 study situation appears to be just at a crisis, at least in city 

 schools, and the near future will reveal whether it is to be con- 

 tinued as a valuable addition to the course of study or to be 

 rejected as one more fad that has had its clay. Those of us who 

 have given thoughtful attention to the content and purpose of the 

 subject are ready to proclaim its values, but it can scarcely be 

 said that a similar unanimity of opinion exists among public- 



