WANTED: A PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE -STUDY 



By C. H. ROBISON 



State Normal School, Montclair, N. J. 



By coming into practical agreement as to what nature-study 

 really is and is not, the leaders in the nature-study movement 

 have taken a great step forward. We do not, however, find a 

 correspondingly convincing assurance regarding its justification 

 in the curriculum, regarding what we hope to do, or what should 

 be the final product in education. 



Our choice of subject-matter must depend on our aims. 

 Noting differences between the serrate edge of the leaves of the 

 elm and beech requires closer observation and keener discrimina- 

 tion than distinguishing between the potato-bug and the lady- 

 bug that eats its eggs; but with aims other than mere practice 

 in sense perception the former furnishes much less valuable mate- 

 rial than does the latter, especially since there are other much 

 better ways of distinguishing the trees. 



In no less degree does our method of approach depend on the 

 philosophic basis of our theory; on whether we regard the child 

 as a member of a present and a future society or as an isolated 

 individual, as a social creature or solely as an intellectual being; 

 •on whether we regard education as a process of adding on adult 

 ideals or as a "re-making of present experiences." While quite 

 generally rejecting the classification of phenomena made by the 

 scientists, the question may be raised whether our "naturists," 

 if we may so call them, have gotten away from adult standards 

 of interest and have sufficiently adopted the child's valuation 

 of a given subject of nature as the criterion of use or of approach, 

 be it a valuation from the standpoint of his personal needs, or 

 of needs of society as he recognizes them. 



Leaders in methods of teaching reading, history, and even 

 arithmetic, are straining every nerve to provide in those subjects 

 opportunities for the child to participate in real social situations, 

 as witness the dramatizations, the play store, the class savings 

 bank, and even the demand upon nature-study by these branches 

 to help them out in this respect. Yet in nature-study, rivalled 



206 



