308 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



methods of exact reasoning, or mathematics. The other has advo- 

 cated the study of man's surroimdings, his piiysical environment, 

 of the world in which man is placed and on which he so largely de- 

 pends. The defenders of the classical education have been com- 

 pelled to yield point after point to the champions of scientific educa- 

 tion. 



To-day we are coming to the conclusion that we can get the best, 

 well-rounded, liberal education by a compromise between the two 

 opposing schools, in the study of man and nature. 



From the higher institutions this struggle has passed into the 

 secondary schools, the high schools and academies, where a similar 

 compromise is being effected, or a sharp distinction made between 

 the students taking classical and those pursuing scientific courses. 

 Our elementary schools have until recently confined their work to the 

 studies relating to man, to his language and ©ther methods of con- 

 veying ideas, to his methods of exact reasonug, and to the way he has 

 divided up the earth. 



Everything has been centered about man, as the universe was 

 once supposed to be centered about the earth. Even geography, the 

 study of which might well have brought the pupils into closest rela- 

 tion with their physical environment, has been, not a study of the 

 earth, of our physical environment, but almost entirely a study of 

 a description of the earth, and of a description not to any great 

 extent of physical forces, processes, and features, but very largely of 

 the division made by man, and of the features due to man. The 

 schools have to a certain extent, placed strong emphasis on the so- 

 called essentials, reading, writing, drawing, history, arithmetic and 

 geography. 



The children in these schools have studied almost nothing of the 

 other ijart of their environment, the physical world, which forms 

 such a large part of their life. To-day the old conflict is being waged 

 in. these elementary schools. The advocates of science are urging 

 the introduction from the beginning of the child's school life of some 

 study of the outside world which lies about the child. 



This is what we call elementary science, or nature study. The 

 terms elementary science, and nature study are both widely used. 

 The first is, perhaps, more exact, and therefore more scientific. 

 Nature study has a less formidable sound, and better expresses the 

 spirit in which the work should be undertaken. It seems much the 

 better term at least for the work in the first four or five years of 

 the child's school life. 



Nature study then is a study of physical environment. It is not a 

 study of books. Books may help, they may tell us about nature, 

 but they are not nature. It is not listening to the teacher as he 

 telle about nature, or what purports to be nature. It is not merely 



