2 46 THE NA TU RE- STUD Y RE VIE IV U- 8-nov , 1908 



duty of our educational institutions to take note of the tendencies 

 of American life, and then rush in with a grand hurrah to lead the 

 mob, yet this is not an unnatural inference from Professor 

 Hodge's remarks. It is the function of college and school to give 

 stability to those elements of American life which are virtues, and 

 strenuously to resist those which are faults. That training in 

 accuracy in particulars is a great problem of American education 

 at the present day is vividly brought out in the Declaration of the 

 National Education Association at Cleveland in July last,* a 

 document which every American teacher should thoroughly 

 know, and I commend to my readers' attention a comparison of 

 the articles of Professor Bailey and Professor Hodge with para- 

 graphs 1, 2, 5, 14 of that Declaration. Upon such a comparison 

 I am willing to rest my case. 



In a word, with all the burden of their faults, I maintain that 

 the tolerably-taught scientific elementary courses of college and 

 high school are not only educationally of high value but are in- 

 comparably superior to any of the substitutes which have yet, in 

 the name of nature-study, been offered for them. There are two 

 ways in this w r orld in which we can surpass our competitors. 

 One is to rise by merit above them, and the other is to push them 

 dow r n. I hope in their efforts to advance their interests, the 

 nature-study advocates will rel) upon the first of these. 



*Pub]ished in Science 28, 



