shilling] NATURE-STUDY IN SAN DIEGO NORMAL 145 



our surroundings make us think. This was the object of the old- 

 time object-lesson, but in the hands of unskillful and superficial 

 teachers so little information of any vital interest to the children 

 was brought out that the method soon fell into disrepute. In so 

 far as the object-lesson trained the mind in observation, it was 

 fulfilling an important mission, but it usually failed in doing this 

 for the reason that facts presented to the child about the objects 

 were not, to his mind, of sufficient importance to make him crave 

 more of them. 



There is a vast wealth of facts in nature lying just below the 

 surface, if we will look for them, which the child has never 

 realized and which he will appreciate if rightly presented. There 

 are wrigglers in the stagnant pool and buzzing insects in the air 

 all about us, which, if seen by the child using the microscope, a 

 very valuable adjunct to the nature-study equipment, are full of 

 interest and instruction. There are physical and chemical facts 

 of which most teachers have considerable knowledge, which if 

 presented to the child accompanied by sufficient illustrative 

 experiments can not fail to stimulate thought and incidentally to 

 increase his love of school. 



Nature-study is frequently called elementary science. 

 "Science" is a very indefinite word if taken in its literal sense and 

 means simplv knowledge. With this liberal definition of the 

 word no harm can be done to the cause of nature-study by bur- 

 dening it with this rather pretentious word. But if we mean' by 

 science what is meant by scientific men, namely, a systematic 

 classification of facts accompanied by many technical terms and 

 the deduction of facts from general principles, then we kill nature- 

 study by making it a subject entirely unsuited to the child 

 mind. 



To the children generalities are meaningless because to be com- 

 prehended thev must rest upon a multitude of concrete facts 

 which as yet are not a part of the child's mental equipment. 

 Technical terms are in themselves valueless and should, as far as 

 possible, be avoided. Many a teacher has imagined that her 

 little children were adepts in the knowledge of flowers because 

 they could glibly tell you the names of all the parts of a plant and 

 the number of each, although their attention had never been 

 directed to the study of flowers themselves and their habits. The 

 letter killeth ; but if the spirit of nature-study asserts itself in the 



