﻿58 Book Reviews. 



teacher, who is himself a student, can do no better than to take this 

 book as a starting point. It will start him aright, and by adopt- 

 ing Prof. Bailey's method, which is no more nor less than the 

 scientific method, he will gain in intellectual strength at every 

 step. Undoubtedly such a teacher cannot fail to bring good out 

 of his pupils. 



Nature Study in Elementary Schools, a Teachers' Manual by Mrs. 



L. L. Wilson, Ph.D. New York. The Macmillan Company. 



95 cents. 



This book of 216, i2mo pages contains suggestions for 

 teachers of, presumably, the lower grades on various topics 



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nature study, including the weather, plants, animals and stones, 

 and is planned to help the teacher without scientific training to 



with 



As 



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from 



There 



are abundant references to prose and poetry touching upon the 

 matter in hand. The author, being first a naturalist, a large por- 

 tion of the book is given to the animals and plants, but the treat- 



from some 



satisfactory 



In crit- 



icising such a work, however, it is of first important to keep m 

 mind the author's point of view, which, in this case, is, it would 



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As a result of condensation, some statements 



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for instance 



"dust which makes 



the seeds " or as when the tunics of the onion bulb are apparently 

 regarded as "crowded leaves full of nourishment " when in point 

 of fact they are but portions of leaves. Whether a loose state- 

 ment such as this is warranted by the pedagogic principle advo- 

 cated on page 23, " Function should precede f< 

 be questioned and this is a real difficulty which confronts the 

 teacher of the young. The reviewer thinks it is not, because ex- 

 perience tells us how difficult it is to eradicate the misconceptions 



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