BARR ON NATURE STUDY. 23 



are made do representations become possible; and further, only as 

 drawini;s are made can we detect and remedy deficient seeing. Only as 

 one lias cxjK'riencod the delight of personal investigation can he realize 

 the sense of i)ower that it confers. "This thing I know." No amount of 

 description, no figures in a book can ever take the place of personal 

 contact with the thing studied. ISooks may teach us what we shall 

 believe, but those things our hands have handled and our eyes have 

 seen, have passed beyond the phase of simple belief and have become 

 a part of ourselves. 



So strongly has this ])rinciple commended itself as affording the 

 real elements of power that the most vigorous opponents of the grow- 

 ing claims of science education have been forced to employ its methods 

 in their everyday work. 



But why nature study? Are not or cannot the same results be at- 

 tained by other methods already in use? 1 would say decidedly, no. 

 Nature is the environment of us all. Many of us have regarded it as 

 ^'un fait accomplie," but to the child it is the most absorbing interest 

 in life. It is things that hold him. not thoughts; objects and not ideas. 

 He has been forced to study his surroundings and has found the study 

 pay. Tie no longer cries for the moon, for he has found it to be un- 

 attainable. He shuns the fire, not because he has been told it is dan- 

 gerous but Ix'cause he has felt it burn. Leaves, trees, grass, birds, 

 flowers and insects are to him of absorbing worth, for of these he knows 

 and would fain learn more and interest is one of the foundation stones 

 of pedagogical success. 



Study not to know things alone, but to know them as part of a 

 great whole. Link each new fact to the storehouse within. Co- 

 ordinate knowledge. A thing assimilated is like a jackstraw in a pile. 

 Touch it and you disturb the whole. Things do not exist alone, they 

 exist for other things as well. This is as true of man as of the grass of 

 the field. It should be our constant aim to relate, rchifc, RELATE things! 

 Start at any point and were we wise enough we could bind together 

 the universe as in a chain. To illustrate: Rocks, soil, plants, trees, 

 leaves, soil, rocks. Soil, water, sand, rocks, houses, men, agriculture, 

 soil. Trees, fruits, seeds, grain, meadows, forests, trees. And not 

 things alone, but activities are a part of our real world. The child 

 should know his environment and that the relations between it and him- 

 self are mutual. This knowledge cairies with it obligation and considera- 

 tion for his environment as contributing toward himself. Love of 

 nature is truly love toward man. 



A slight suggestion ahtng this line sometimes bears rich fruit. Set 

 a rhild to searching for relations and the world is full of them. Nymphs 

 inhabit the fountains, dryads the trees, and every flower is a fairy 

 bower. Aesoj) lives again and in a truer sense than in olden tales the 

 beasts of the field talk together. 



This study of relations is a study of the '"whys." By it not only is the 

 actual perception quickened but the reasoning powers as well. Induction 

 and deduction become a part of life and the child learns to stand alone. It 

 has been the fault of our education that it cultivated dependence. I 

 often hear, even yet, that horrid phrase "the book says so." Books 

 should be aids, not nuisters. Dependence on books is dependence on the 

 past, while we live only in the eternal present. Only as we see and 



