TEACHER'S LEAFLETS 



FOR USE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

 PREPARED BY 



SECOND EDITION. 

 No 6. 



JUNE 1, 1897. 



THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, 

 CORNELL UNIVERSITY, 



ITHACA, N. Y. 



Issued under Chapter 128 



of the Ivaws of 1897. I. P. ROBERTS, Director. 



What is Nature-Study? 



BY Iv. H. BAir^EY. 



It is seeing the things which one looks at, and the drawing 

 of proper conclusions from what one sees. Nature-study is not 

 the study of a science, as of botany, entomology, geology, and 

 the like. That is, it takes the things at hand and endeavors to 

 understand them, without reference to the systematic order or 

 relationship of the objects. It is wholly informal and unsys- 

 tematic, the same as the objects are which one sees. It is 

 entirely divorced from definitions, or from explanations in 

 books. It is therefore supremely natural. It simply trains the eye 

 and the mind to see and to comprehend the common things of 

 life ; and the result is not directly the acquiremen.t of science but 

 the establishment of a living sympathy with everything that is. 



The proper objects of nature-study are the things which one 

 oftenest meets. To-day it is a stone ; to-morrow it is a twig, 

 a bird, an insect, a leaf, a flower. The child, or even the high 

 school pupil, is first interested in things which do not need to 

 be analyzed or changed into unusual forms or problems. 

 Therefore, problems of chemistry and of physics are for the 

 most part unsuited to early lessons in nature-study. Moving 

 things, as birds, insects and mammals, interest children most 

 and therefore seem to be the proper subjects for nature-study; 

 but it is often difficult to secure specimens when wanted, 

 especially in liberal quantity, and still more difficult to see the 

 objects in perfectly natural conditions. Plants are more easily 



