INQUIRIES 139 



This charge of superficiality Is usually only the 

 opinion of a different point of view. This Is well 

 illustrated in the critical reviews of elementary 

 text-books of science. Books that have been 

 criticized severely by the scientist have been 

 accepted with enthusiasm by the schoolmaster. 

 The primary merit of a school-book lies in its 

 pedagogy rather than in its science. Statements 

 in such books have two values — the teaching value 

 and the science value. Too often the reviewer 

 thinks only of the science value. 



Of course there is danger of superficiality. 

 There is this danger in everything; but the danger 

 is inherent in the person, not in the subject. SoHd 

 work is as necessary in nature-study as in anything 

 else. It is not play. Professor E. B. TIchener 

 writes as follows of what he considers to be the 

 three dangers in nature-study: ^'The first is that, 

 in striving for sympathy with nature, we run Into 

 sentimentality. The second is that, in avoiding 

 fairy tales, we run into something ten times worse 

 — if indeed fairy tales are bad at all ; I mean a 

 pseudo-psychology of the lower animals. And the 

 third is that, in trying to be exceedingly simple, we 

 become exceedingly inaccurate.'' 



^ut do you think that this nature-study will make 

 investigators ? 



That depends on what you mean by an investi- 

 gator. If you mean an inquirer, then I say that 

 nature-study will develop the trait to perfection. 

 If you mean one who shall discover and record new 

 truth by means of painstaking investigation, then I 



