WINTER MEETING. 325 



But let US inquire what the above proposed reform in the teaching 

 of nature includes. First, it includes the study of nature from earliest 

 infancy to latest manhood and womanhood. This alone, by the old, 

 irrational methods — gorging the memory of childhood as well as youth — 

 would prove an injury instead of a benefit. A.nd yet, what thousands 

 of misguided primary teachers are ransacking text-books of natural 

 science and ponderous cyclopedias, that they may gorge the memory 

 of confiding childhood ! Will He who gave us these windows of the 

 soul, through which the mind might touch and handle and grasp the 

 'myriad natural forms — will He hold him guiltless who tramples His 

 laws under foot? This proposed reform includes, therefore, not only 

 the study of nature from earliest infancy, but that study primarily 

 through the senses, and secondarily through books. But observation 

 may be haphazard, fragmentary and fruitless — putting the mind in pos- 

 session of percepts and concepts only, and these non-essential and dis 

 connected. Such is the character of a large majority of the so-called 

 object-lesson teaching. The pupils are permitted to speak of the 

 unimportant and non-essential properties of an object following each 

 other without regard to relations or unity of thought : " The crayon 

 is large;" "The crayon is long;" "The crayon is white;" "The 

 crayon is round ; " " The crayon is light." No wonder the humorist, 

 James Whitcomb Riley, has been able to convulse his audiences byre- 

 citing the burlesque object-lesson on the peanut. Ideas of size, color, 

 form and weight should be taught by comparison with other objects 

 possessing these qualities, and by comparison with the standard units 

 of weights, measures and forms. Therefore, observation must deal 

 with the essential qualities of objects and lead to a grasp of relations 

 — to comprehension — apperception — mental assimilation. This dealing 

 with relations — apperception — does not stop with a glance at the 

 sparkling waters of the brook or an ear to their liquid music, but 

 inquires what forces have polished the pebbles and carved out the 

 brook's channel and the adjacent valley; what confluent rills have 

 given birth to the brook; what countless water globules, in their aerial 

 homes, have given up their individuality that the pattering rain drops 

 may make the rills; what myriad sun-rays reach out through measure- 

 less space to break the waters of earth into vapor and lift them into 

 cloud land ; how brooks go to make up the tributary rivers, and these 

 the Father of Waters, ever seeking the infinite sea. A profitable 

 study of nature is not content with observing the form, size and organs 

 of the tree, but traces the relations of the bud, flower and fruit ; 

 inquires concerning the materials and processes employed in manufac- 

 turing the stem, the leaf, the flower, the fruit; comprehends the rela- 



