EDITORIAL. 



NATURE STUDY. 



Energetic, enthusiastic and intelligent efforts are being 

 made to introduce Nature Study into the American public school 

 curriculum. The efforts themselves are not new, but enthusi- 

 asm and intelligence in connection with them perhaps are. 

 Huxley's insistence upon the use of that which is vitally and 

 practically related to human activities rather than conventional 

 hereditary materials for the purposes of educational training, 

 and Agassiz's pleas for the study of Nature before books are 

 giving evidence of tlieir influence. 



With the year 1905 there will appear a journal devoted to 

 Nature Study in the elementary schools. The founding of this, 

 the Nature Study Rcviczv, is encouraging evidence of the recog- 

 nition of the place and values of the study of Nature in our 

 schools, and of the active interest of scientifically trained men. 

 The editorial committee of the Review consists of L. H. Bai- 

 ley of Cornell University, H. W. Fairbanks of Berkeley, Cal- 

 ifornia, C. F. Hodge of Clark University, J. F. Woodhull 

 and M. A. Bigelovv of Teacher's College, New York City. 

 These men, and such as they, are intelligently introducing the 

 materials of natural science into our public schools. They are 

 effecting just the kind of utilization of the materials of their 

 own sciences that Huxley devoted so much of his energy and 

 enthusiasm to encouraging. Grounded in genuine interest in 

 scientific work as a source of knowledge which will promote 

 the progress of the race, they are reaching beyond the narrowly 

 circumscribed sphere of scientific investigation with the purpose 

 of making Nature contribute directly to the education which is 

 an important condition of human happiness and efficiency. 



