1908] Nature Study. 149 



will remain green in the memories of our pupils when perhaps 

 many of those given in other subjects are gone and forgotten. 

 Another objection, frequently advanced, is that the teachers 

 are not specially prepared to teach the subject. This is no in- 

 surmountable objection. A great deal of knowledge is not 

 necessary. What is specially required on the part of the teacher 

 is a belief in the educational values of the subject combined 

 with a strong desire to do the work, and with an earnest effort 

 and a will to become better acquainted with the common things 

 around us. That most of us are entirely unacquainted with 

 our surroundings need scarcely be affirmed. Is it not our dutv 

 to do all we can to remedy this state of affairs? The old saying, 

 "Where there's a will there's a way," holds specially true in the 

 teaching of nattire study. Enthusiasm counts for more than 

 anything else. The difficulty is we have become so accustomed 

 to the pouring out of knowledge to our pupils that we are ashamed 

 to say "I don't know"; after all, how little any of us know! Why 

 can't we give our pupils some topic to investigate and at the 

 same time work with them? It may be how an apple is formed 

 in the bud, or how a maple tree gets out of the seed, or the various 

 changes through which a butterfly passes. In investigating 

 these topics w^th our pupils, being willing to have them teach us 

 if necessary, our knowledge will soon increase; and our con- 

 fidence in and love for the subject will lead us to do better things. 

 Moreover this mutual effort of teacher and pupil to investigate 

 together will do more to stimulate the latter to self-exertion than 

 will all the second-hand information we can otherwise give 

 him. I am not denying the importance of and the necessity 

 for knowledge on the part of the teacher; what I do say is, 

 that lack of knowledge need not deter us from taking up the 

 work. Besides, too much knowledge mav lead us into our 

 present fatal error of telling what the child should seek for 

 himself. 



It is true that the subject, as dealt with in many of the 

 texts, is quite -exhaustive; and is sufficient to discourage the 

 average teacher who has done little in the various sciences. 

 Nature study, however, as I have already said, is not science. 

 It takes things as they are around us and endeavors to under- 

 stand them without any attempt at svstematic order or classifica- 

 tion; it is wholly informal and is free from definitions and 

 technical terms. We mav be interested in insects, their haljits 

 and metamorphoses without attempting to know anything 

 about them from a scientific point of view. Leave all that to the 

 specialists. We may take much pleasure in birds, their songs, 

 migrations, habits, and uses. _ without ever having heard of 



