BARR ON NATURE STUDY. 21 



These expei-iiuents jiivo some measui-e of the results of <»ui- priinary 

 and secondary education and the results are not assuring;'. Tliere is a 

 radical defect in any nietlidd tliat so atrojjhies the natural powers in- 

 stead of inrrcasinj; their elliciency. A natural method preserves its 

 foundations f<»r u})on them must rest the whole superstructure. 



Education should be a continuous process, beginning- with the child's 

 entrance into the world and proceeding- by well ordered stejts from that 

 which is known to the unknown. There should be no break in the life, 

 but the entrance into school should, just as perfectly as jiossible, simu- 

 late the normal life of the child and stimulate, to even fuller extent, 

 the factors tliat have thus far given him power, 



lie should be advanced with such gradual steps that he scarce re- 

 alizes that lie is led into new fields of thought and activity. All knowl- 

 edge is a unit and it should be taught as such. It is often dithcnlt for 

 us, narrowed in. each in his own little cell, to see relations, but some 

 day a giant mind will grapple with the problem and a science of teach- 

 ing will result, 



I welcome the kindergarten — I thoroughly believe in it. The sympa- 

 thetic co-o]»eration with the child, leading him on, never driving, cor- 

 recting his faults by suggesting the proper acts, entering into his joys 

 and sorrows, his interests and his plays, in short becoming again a 

 child with him, pins the exi)ei'ience and leadershij) of maturer age ott'ers 

 untold help in setting him right at the outset of liis life's career. 



Rut the kindergarten stops all too soon and the change to later 

 school life is like a transition to a new stage of existence. How shall we 

 remedy this evil'.' The ol»vious method lies in the child taking his 

 interests with him. 



The objects of nature study are manifold and to enumerate them all 

 would seem to many of you to present an extravagant claim. In brief, 

 they are these: To link the school life of the child to his previous 

 ex]»erience; to develoj) and perfect his powers of observation; to lead 

 him to question intelligently from the thing he sees to the causes 

 that juoduced it, and which he cannot see; to realize the interdepend- 

 ence of natural ])hen<)mena and hence their essential oneness; to bring 

 liim to place himself in iiroj)er relation to his environment and to recog- 

 nize himself as but one small part of a great and closely knit whole; 

 from this to lead him to an appreciation of mutual heljifulness and to 

 regard his own interest not an end to be advanced but the common in- 

 terest as paramount, his own to be secured only as he subordinates his 

 I)lace; to lead liim to altruism, to morality and thence on to God. This 

 is a lofty aim and, as I said, the claim may seem o'er bold. Let us see. 



That the jthysical nature first manifests itself in sensation and later 

 in motion, and develops to a point of efficiency, to be in turn suc- 

 ceeded by a thinking and a reasoning nature is of common knowledge. 

 The linking of these into a perfect chain, stiong in all its parts, is 

 our task. The little child lives in a realm of sensations. So far as 

 we can tell, he has no thoughts. His whole existence is bounded by 

 feelings but through these feelings he by and by begins to know. In 

 his first five years, he learns perhaps as much as in all the remainder 

 of his life. He learns to use his body fairly well, to lun, to walk, to 

 see and hear, to talk, to think, to coordinate sense impressions with 

 experience, and to hear and see with the understanding as well as with 



