bailey] the nature-study outlook 171 



take college physics and yet have no idea of the common physical 

 phenomena of life. He may take physiology and have little real 

 conception of his bodily functions or of every-day sanitation. 

 These subjects are likely to be taught with the special student in 

 mind rather than the general student. The teacher is likely to 

 think of the necessity of developing a whole subject rather than 

 to give the student a rational and vivid conception of the subject 

 as it relates to him. I have been interested all my life in plants; 

 but I should not care to have one of my children devote four or 

 five periods a week for a whole freshman year to the study of 

 botany unless he were specially interested in botany. I am con- 

 vinced that much of the beginning teaching in the sciences in 

 colleges and universities is very bad. It is no doubt accurate, 

 and it is also no doubt well adapted to the few students who de- 

 sire to specialize in the subject; but such students should be 

 taken further in courses designed for them. 



There has been much criticism of the nature-study work be- 

 cause it is not "thorough"; that is, because it does not go far 

 enough and deep enough. There is undoubtedly reason for such 

 criticism. There are no doubt lax and lazy teachers, but it is 

 not at all necessary to go into the long minutia; of a subject in 

 order to teach it thoroughly as far as we go. It is necessary to 

 organize our nature-study work so that it will be systematic, def- 

 inite and have relation. This is necessary if for no reason than 

 that it may be adaptable to school method. Yet it is easy to 

 make the work so formidable as to take the life out of it. We are 

 likely to think because we have laboratories and teach by the 

 laboratory method that we are thereby teaching nature-study. 

 As a matter of fact, however, laboratory teaching may be just as 

 far from life as book teaching is. It all depends on the intention 

 and the mode. We are likely to feel that persons who are put 

 through a form of training in any subject are thereby qualified to 

 pass it. The fact, is, however that our colleges are turning out 

 great numbers of uneducated persons. 



It is apparent that there is a general dissatisfaction with the 

 text-book method of instruction. Personal work with the object 

 or the phenomenon itself is coming to be the accepted procedure. 

 It is, of course, necessary to have text-books, but they must be 

 written from the point of view of the particular grade or school in 

 which they are to be used. A good part of our public school text- 



