1 86 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW U :6-sept., iqo8 



"Long Ago," when, after telling of his boyhood intimacy with 

 birds, flowers, woodchucks, toads and bees, he says: 



"And pining for the joys of youth, 



I tread the old familiar spot 

 Only to learn this solemn truth: 



I have forgotten, am forgot. 

 Yet here's this youngster at my knee 



Knows all the things I used to know; 

 To think I once was wise as he — 



But that was very long ago." 



Iii the primary grades the aesthetic is legitimately prominent 

 and can be presented by a teacher without much preparation or 

 acquaintance with the material. However, this same aesthetic 

 becomes anaesthetic when given in repeated annual doses. There 

 must be meat in the lesson if the fourth grade boy is to give his 

 approval to the exercise. 



The work, ordinarily, should be thrown into the form of the 

 problem; hence the point of attack — of contact with the pupil's 

 experience—becomes a matter of strategic importance. 



All this means that the best preparation of teachers of nature- 

 study involves a groundwork of scientific training, not merely for 

 the mastery of subject-matter, but also for the appreciation of 

 scientific method and the peculiar functions of science instruction. 



It means also that there must be a course of study — not one 

 course for all communities, but some form of insurance that deadly 

 repetition will be avoided and that the expanding interests and 

 needs of the child will be pedagogically respected. 



IV 



By GILBERT H TRAFTON 

 Passaic, N. J. 



When I first became interested in the nature-study movement, 

 one of the earliest conclusions at which I arrived was that the 

 solution of the problems lay in the normal schools in the prepara- 

 tion of the teachers. Subsequent experience has strengthened 

 this conviction. This Society will probably not discuss any sub- 

 ject within the next decade so far reaching and significant as the 

 one before us this afternoon. 



I would like to discuss this subject from the standpoint of the 

 teacher. My experience as supervisor of nature-study in a small 

 city has given opportunity to see what preparation teachers have 



