MEANING OF NATURE-STUDY 17 



order may be reversed with profit, but this should 

 be the exception: from the wagon to the star 

 should be the rule. 



Yet again, nature-study is not the teaching of 

 facts for the sake of the facts. It is not the giving 

 of information merely — notwithstanding the fact 

 that some nature-study leaflets are information 

 leaflets. We must begin with the fact, to be sure, 

 but the lesson is not the fact but the significance 

 of the fact. It is not necessary that the fact have 

 direct practical application to the daily life, for 

 the object is the effort to train the mind and the 

 sympathies. It is a common notion that when 

 the subject-matter is insects, the pupil should be 

 taught the life-histories of injurious insects and 

 how to destroy the pests. Now, nature-study may 

 be equally valuable whether the subject is the 

 codlin-moth or the ant ; but to confine the pupil's 

 attention to insects that are injurious to man is to 

 give him a distorted and untrue view of nature. 

 A bouquet of daisies does not represent a meadow. 

 Children should be interested more in seeing 

 things live than in killing them. Yet I would not 

 emphasize the injunction, "Thou shalt not kill.'' 

 Nature-study is not recommended for the explicit 

 teaching of morals. I should prefer to have the 

 child become so much interested in living things 

 that it would have no desire to kill them. The 

 gun and sling-shot and fish-pole will be laid aside 

 because the child does not like them any more. 

 We have been taught that one must make collec- 

 tions if he is to be a naturalist. But collections 



