RECENT ASPECTS OF THE NATURE-STUDY MOVEMENT 



By EUGENE DAVENPORT 



Dean of College of Agriculture and Director of Agricultural Experiment Station, University 



of Illinois 



Nature-study in its various forms and with all its successes and 

 failures, with its advantages and its short-comings, ought to be 

 regarded, it seems to me, as one of the many attempts of educa- 

 tors to connect the school with the real things of life. The world 

 has changed much since the old days when the scholar attempted, 

 first of all, to withdraw from the world and free himself from 

 mundane facts and influences that his mind might dwell in a 

 world of idealism. We have also gotten beyond the stage when 

 it was believed that the greatest study of mankind is man. and 

 we are now trying to study man in his relations not only to his 

 Creator and to other men, but to his own activities and to other 

 created things. 



The first effect of nature-study was doubtless to cultivate the 

 powers of observation, to attract attention to things close by, 

 to lead the student to realize vividly how information is secured 

 and how books are made. All this would be worth while even if 

 it led to nothing better but, like all new movements, it rapidly 

 developed into something of deeper consequence than the original 

 effort. 



I believe the time is coming when we should construe nature- 

 study in the broadest possible terms: that we should under- 

 stand it to mean not merely the observation of things going on 

 outside of us and our affairs, but that it should also include those 

 phases of nature activity which especially concern us, and in 

 which we, ourselves, are able to take a hand and exert influence. 



It seems to me it is this phase of the matter which accounts for 

 the great interest in the developing of the study of agriculture. 

 This element of personal influence is a strong one in the education 

 of the child. It is the powerful element lending interest to the 

 study of household science, art, manual training and industrial 

 subjects generally, and when it is exerted upon living things, as it 

 is in agriculture, it cannot help but appeal to the interest of the 

 student and exert a peculiar usefulness in his education. 



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