52 NATURE STUDY. 



better waj^ could the first two results be unconsciously 

 brought about than by two or three, more if desirable, of 

 these attractive displays during the season. 



Surely, the eager faces of the school children, bending 

 over the tables, the interest and hearty co-operation of the 

 teachers and the pleasure of even prominent business men 

 who "dropped in" for an hour, and declared these flowers 

 familiar by sight but not bj^ name, seemed to make all 

 trouble and weariness worth while. 



Nature Study. 



Prof. Bailey, of Cornell University, gives a weight}^ an- 

 swer to the question : " What is nature study?" It is, he 

 vSays, a point of view% the acquirement of S3^mpathy with 

 and interest in the natural world around us. We live in 

 this world, and the better we fit it the better for us. It is 

 for this reason that nature study deserves a place in the 

 school studies of children. Primarily, the object of nature 

 study is not the acquisition of mere information. Nature 

 study is not "method" in the sense that the word is used 

 in pedagogy. In another sense scientific method is of the 

 ver}^ essence of nature study, it would seem, A child asks : 

 "How old is the world? How long have men lived on 

 it ? Why has a tiger stripes ? Why do certain flowers 

 have exactly such shapes and no others?" To answer 

 these questions the child must be made to comprehend the 

 methods at the base of geology, zoologj^ botany. And in 

 this sense it would seem that method is of the very essence 

 of nature study. 



The object of such studies is not to make the child a 

 specialist or a scientist. It is to make him a citizen of the 

 world he lives in — to interest him in plants and birds and 

 insects and running brooks. The crop of scientists will 

 take care of itself. Much is often unwisely sacrificed to a 

 so-called "thoroughness" — which, in many cases, takes the 

 form of a perfunctor}^ drill in mere acts. Accuracy is, of 

 of course, a prime requisite of all good teaching, but it is 



