THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED PRIMARILY TO ALL SCIENTIFIC STUDIES OF NATURE IN 



ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



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Editorial 



EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE AS NATURE-STUDY 



Granted that Animate Nature appeals more strongly and more 

 frequently to the child than the Inanimate does, it does not follow 

 that the latter should be excluded from the course in Nature- 

 Study. If choice of matter is to depend on the child's interest it 

 does follow that the preponderance of the biological matter will 

 gradually become less markt as the child's experience widens and 

 becomes more reactive towards environment. The merely obser- 

 vational attitude becomes more and more experimental as the 

 child's education progresses. 



There is evidence that many teachers are yet confusing nature 

 study with formal science. They seem to think in effect that the 

 former consists almost wholly of ornithologv, entomology and 

 botany modified for the nursery and that the chief modification 

 consists in the exclusion of the language of precision — "technical 

 terms." "In a course of lessons on insect life one might begin 

 with etc" is what the teacher of formal science might sa>'. There 

 is no "course of lessons on insects" for the nature-study teacher. 

 An important difference between the two kinds of lessons is that 

 one is chosen from or originates in a syllabus or text-book; the 

 other from real experience. Nature-Study is education thru the 

 investigation of experience. Using the term "experience" to 

 include observation the longer I try to work out the nature-study 

 idea, the more satisfactorily does this brief statement define it. 

 Making lessons at school of things the children see and do at home 

 and outdoors is genuine nature-study. When ■i3arents and teach- 

 ers co6])erate to direct and enrich the children's experiences with 



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