89 
den did not speak, but embodied his intended remarks in the 
form of a letter to the Committee on Studies. The following 
is the text of the letter: 
tu 
February 19, 1913. 
Tue COMMITTEE ON STUDIES, 
Board of Education, 
59th St. and Park Avenue, 
Jew York City. 
Dear Sirs:—May I trespass upon your time long enough to 
call attention to two or three points which [ had hoped to men- 
tion at the hearing last evening? Owing to the lateness of the 
hour, and especially to the fact that I found myself in such 
substantial accord with your Committee, I thought best not 
to speak at the hearing. 
During the past two days I have been visiting public schools 
in Brooklyn, have heard a number of nature study lessons 
taught, and have talked over the subject with teachers and prin- 
cipals. I have also carefully studied the Course of Study and 
Syllabus. Nothing could be more evident than the inadequacy 
of this document, and the desirability of radically revising the 
nature study portion of it. I beg to make four suggestions: 
1. That nature study be not entirely eliminated as a separate 
subject, nor used merely in correlation with English and geog- 
raphy. I believe it might well be reduced in amount in grades 
below 4A, and that language, drawing, and geography should 
be correlated with nature study. ‘There is a real and funda- 
mental difference between correlating nature study with English, 
and correlating English with nature study. The study of a 
natural object, as is doubtless evident to your Committee, may 
form the basis of an exercise in language and drawing, but 
— 
ary 
— 
MOURN Cane VGisc: 
2. The course of study specifies such native wild flowers 
as hepatica, marsh-marigold, trailing-arbutus, strawberry (blos- 
soms), Jack-in-the-pulpit, columbine, spring-beauty, and dog’s- 
tooth violet. These are all rare and beautiful wild flowers. 
To secure enough specimens of any of them for all the classes 
in any one school (to say nothing of all the schools in the 
greater city) is not only practically impossible, but if it were 
