1 8 4 THE NA TU RE- STUD Y RE VIE W U- 6-skpt. , iqo8 



of contact with nature multiplied and the life of both pupil and 

 teacher wonderfully enriched. All of this means, as I said in 

 Chicago last winter, that the teacher must realize and realize 

 definitely, that nature-study is not a body of knowledge, but an 

 attitude of mind. This cannot be repeated too often nor em- 

 phasized too strongly. Nature-study is not a body of knowledge, 

 it is a new view-point; a new view of natural objects and phe- 

 nomena, a new view of the environment and growing out of this a 

 new view of the meaning and significance of life. 



Concerning the preparation of the teacher, I have not much to 

 say. I am inclined to the opinion that the teachers are much 

 better prepared than superintendents and the officials directing 

 school affairs. The madness for uniformity is so widespread and 

 has become so firmly fixed in our school systems that originality, 

 initiative, enthusiasm, are not merely suppressed, they are 

 actually anathema maranatha. The results of this craze for 

 uniformity are obvious and would be ludicrous were they not so 

 infinitely pitiable. Nature-study is really revolutionary. It has 

 been and still is a groping, somewhat blindly indeed, after some 

 device by which education can be brought into touch with the 

 daily life of the child; to make it so attractive, so vital, that he 

 goes to the school as naturally as he goes to his play or to his rest, 

 since it, too, is a part of his daily life. Professor Bailey told us a 

 moment ago of his belief, that in the near future our school system 

 would be redirected. This new viewpoint, that education must 

 be related to the daily life is the redirecting force and is 

 nothing short of revolutionary. Of course a thorough training in 

 elementary botany and zoology and chemistry and physics and a 

 whole line of other subjects is extremely valuable, since it gives a 

 splendid back ground of knowledge; but of infinitely more im- 

 portance is the. possession of a quick eye, a sympathetic heart and 

 an honest purpose. With these and with the wealth of material 

 surrounding every school the real teacher cannot go far astray. 

 In teachers of the other sort, I have no interest; the law of the 

 survival of the fittest will surely operate and those who teach the 

 schools of the future will be those of sympathetic heart and honest 

 purpose, who have grasped the conception that the school and 

 life are one and the same thing. The really important matter is, 

 that we as teachers should recognize th e fact that there is such a 

 thing as a new education in which the supreme problem is the 



