VALUES OF NATURE STUDY 



25 



has thus built up the human brain to the level at which 

 civilization was possible, we begin to see the true impor- 

 tance of her tuition and to realize that a plan of education 

 that leaves *'the Old Nurse" in the background is quite 

 likely to fail in laying the solid foundations of intelligent 

 human character. It is in danger of posing as a system 

 of elementary education with ideally elementary education 

 left out. 



Before discussing its value from the point of view of 

 the child's development, I may say a single word for the 

 teacher and for the tone and spirit of the school in general, 

 as it appears largely in the relation of teacher to child. 

 The impossible idea that a teacher must know everything 

 is at present the shackles of our school system. Here is 

 a subject that shatters these fetters by its very presence. 

 In this field any child may ask a question that all the 

 wise men cannot answer. The field is so boundless that 

 to expect an elementary teacher to know all or much about 

 a small part of it is preposterous. The most advanced 

 specialists really know only a little about a very few ani- 

 mals or plants, and this little relates chiefly to technical 

 details that have no place in a nature-study course. On 

 the active side of growth and movement children, teachers, 

 and specialists are all learners together. 



. Thus, father and son, teacher and pupil, parent and child, walk 

 together in one great living universe. Let not teacher or parent 

 object that he himself is as yet ignorant of this. Not the communi- 

 cation of knowledge already in their possession is the task, but the 

 calling forth of new knowledge. - Let them observe, lead their pupils 

 to observe, and render themselves and their pupils conscious of their 

 observations. . . . 



