Inquiries and Answers 213 



real activities of work and play, and when we 

 shall add the books and apparatus gradually as 

 he grows and the need of them develops. Your 

 exhibition should teach this. 



Should this nature-study he confined to the 

 schools? 



It should not be confined to schools. Too 

 often it is thus restricted because we are in the 

 habit of delegating the training of our children 

 to a professional class of teachers. Ideally, 

 the home should be the most perfect school, 

 and the parents should be the best teachers. 

 In the increasing complications of our lives, 

 however, the division of labor forces the chil- 

 dren more and more from the home-training 

 into the school-training; therefore it is increas- 

 ingly important that we give good heed to 

 the maintenance of schools. But e\cn so, the 

 home-training should afford an auxiliary to the 

 school-training. There should be more than 

 one common bond of method and purpose. 

 One of these bonds should certainly be the 



