A PLEA FOR NATURE STUDY DRAWN FROM EXPERIENCE. 273 
A PLEA FOR NATURE STUDY DRAWN FROM 
EXPERIENCE. 
- What is nature-study? 
“Tt is the seeing of things which one looks at and the drawing of proper 
eonclusions from what one sees. Nature-study is not the study of a science, 
as of botany, entomology, geology, and the like. That is, it takes the 
things at hand and endeavors to understand them, without reference to the 
systematic order or relationship of the objects. It is wholly informal and 
unsystematic, as the objects are which one sees. It is entirely divorced 
from definitions in books. It is therefore supremely natural. It simply 
trains the eye and the mind to see and to comprehend the common things 
of life; and the result is not directly the acquirement of science, but the 
establishing of a living sympathy with everything that is. 
“The proper objects of nature-study are the things which one oftenest 
meets. To-day it is a stone, to-morrow it is a twig.a bird. an insect, a leaf, 
a flower.’’—Prof. L. H. Bailey, from a leaflet entitled ‘‘What is Nature- 
study ?’’ issued by the College of Agriculture of Cornell University, N. Y. 
The aim of this paper is not to prove the value of nature-study as taught 
in our public schools, for that has been already done. The question for us is 
no longer, shall we introduce nature-study into our public schools? for it has 
already been introduced and, so far as the spirit of the work is concerned, 
has become so firmly established as to prove that it has come to stay. What 
it needs now is not arguments in defence of theory or method, but united 
effort on the part of those who appreciate its mission in some way that will 
offer the aid of a strong helping hand to those who through patient persever- 
ence have developed the movement in Minnesota. 
When we stop to think that this great work, which we all consider of 
such vital importance to our children, is, in each school throughout our 
state, dependent, absolutely, upon the interest of the teacher and her 
ability to give of her limited time and defray, out of her often slender 
income, any necessary expenses; while village improvement societies and 
civic leagues, all over the state, are taking up the work of distribution of 
flower seeds and the improvement of school grounds, it does seem as though, 
with this State Agricultural College and this State Horticultural Society to 
furnish the knowledge and direct the way, some plan might be devised 
whereby all these scattered forces could be brought “together and made 
to contribute far greater results than are possible under the present condition 
of things. New York and Indiana have gone on record in this matter. I 
wish that Minnesota could be next. 
Just to illustrate what great results can grow out of even a little effort to 
help: When we of the flower department of the Minneapolis Improvement 
League learned that there was no appropriation, whatever, of funds for the 
support of nature-study in our public schools, we asked ourselves: “How 
can we help these busy teachers in their noble effort to support this great 
work?” The answer came: “Furnish in our annual distribution of seeds 
to the school children the varieties required in the study of plant-life at 
school. As every child loves to carry flowers to school he can thus have 
the additional interest and pleasure of contributing, through his own indi- 
vidual effort, the necessary material and in this way save his teacher trouble 
and expense. 
Nature-study, of course, includes, in the study of plant-life, every kind 
of plant, tree, fruit and vegetable; but the two most commonly met with, 
