190 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [ 4 :6-skpt., 1908 



the initiative is with the children and would result in vitalized 

 experiences which comprehend the observations of the first, and 

 much more. 



VI 



By J. DEARNESS, M. A. 

 Normal School, London, Canada 



I wish to emphasize the objection taken by a previous speaker 

 to the term ''observation." It tends to contract the aim of the 

 subject to mere looking and naming. Instead, however, of the 

 proposed richer term experience I should prefer investigation. 

 Nature-study is self-activity on the part of the child to discover 

 something that it desires to know — doing something to find out 

 something. On the teacher's side it is leading the child into full 

 possession of all his powers to react on his environment to the end 

 of efficiency and happiness. Learning facts about natural 

 objects, even facts that adults think worth knowing, may have 

 extremely little educational value. The teacher who forces his 

 adult interests in scale insects and wheat-rusts for example, upon 

 the child is liable to miss completely the nature-study value, 

 whereas a scientific toy which a child had brought to school to 

 amuse his companions with may be made the subject of a fruitful 

 and genuinely educative nature-study lesson. Seek first among 

 the children's daily experiences for subjects for nature-studies and 

 then treat these by the heuristic method. 



VII 



By HORACE H. CUMMINGS 

 Salt Lake City 



In view of the fact, brought out by previous speakers, that 

 pupils in large cities have so little experience with plants and 

 animals, it is a great mistake to confine their nature work to 

 biology. Physics should form the basis of one-third of this work, 

 as they are at all times in touch with one or more of its laws. 

 Gravity, light, heat, sound, electricity, the pressure of gases and 

 liquids, friction, capillarity and a hundred other phases of this 

 science have been observed by city children all their lives; and 

 these observations should be systematized and interpreted by 

 them. 



