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had, and are therefore more practicable for the purpose, 

 although animals and minerals should by no means be excluded. 



If the objects to be studied are informal, the methods of 

 teaching should be, also. If nature-study were made a stated 

 part of a curriculum, its purpose would be defeated. The 

 chiefest difficulty with our present school methods is the 

 necessary formality of the courses and the hours. Tasks are 

 set, and tasks are always hard. The only way to teach nature- 

 study is, with no course laid out, to bring in whatever object 

 may be at hand and to set the pupils to looking at it. The 

 pupils do the work, — they see the thing and explain its structure 

 and its meaning. The exercise should not be long, — not to 

 exceed fifteen minutes at any time, and, above all things, the 

 pupil should never look upon it as a recitation, and there should 

 never be an examination. It should come as a rest exercise, 

 whenever the pupils become listless. Ten minutes a day, for 

 one term, of a short, sharp and spicy observation upon plants, 

 for example, is worth more than a whole text-book of botany. 



The teacher should studiously avoid definitions, and the set- 

 ting of patterns. The old idea of the model flower is a 

 pernicious one, because it really does not exist in nature. The 

 model flower, the complete leaf, and the like, are inferences, 

 and pupils should always begin with things and not with ideas. 

 In other words, the ideas should be suggested by the things, 

 and not the things by the ideas. " Here is a drawing of a 

 model flower," the old method says; "go and find the nearest 

 approach to it." " Go and find me a flower," is the true 

 method, "and let us see what it is." 



Every child, and every grown person too, for that matter, is 

 interested in nature-study, for it is the natural method of 

 acquiring knowledge. The only difficulty lies in the teaching, 

 for very few teachers have had any drill or experience in this 

 informal method of drawing out the observing and reasoning 

 powers of the pupil wholly without the use of text-books. 

 The teacher must first of all feel the living interest in natural 

 objects which it is desired the pupils shall acquire. If the 

 enthusiasm is not catching, better let such teaching alone. 



