" Yet again, nature-study is not the tcachiny of facts for the sake of 

 the facts. It is not the giving of information merely — notwithstanding 

 the fact tJiat some nature-study leaflets arc information leaflets. We 

 must begin with the fact, to he sure, hut the lesson is not the fact but the 

 significance of the fact. It is not necessary that the fact have direct prac- 

 tical application to the daily life, for the object is the effort to train the 

 mind and the sympathies. It is a common notion that zvhen the subject- 

 matter is insects, the pupil should he taught the life-histories of injurious 

 insects and hoiv to destroy the pests. Nozv, nature-study may he equally 

 valuable whether the subject is the codlin-moth or the ant; hut to con- 

 fine the pupil's attention to insects that are injurious to man is to give 

 him a distorted and untrue vieiv of nature. A bouquet of daisies does 

 not represent a meadozv. Children should he interested more in seeing 

 things live than in killing them. Yet I zvould not emphasize the injunc- 

 tion, ' Thou shalt not kill' Nature-study is not recommended for the 

 explicit teaching of morals. I should prefer to have the child become so 

 much interested in living things that it zvould have no desire to kill them." 



L. H. Bailey in " The Nature-study Idea." 



582 



