GENERAL INTRODUCTION II 



II. THE METHOD OF NATURE STUDY 



We have book-teachers enough. Oh, for more bookless ones ! 



BISHOP E. A, THOMPSON. 



The school work should be based as much as possible upon 

 the environment and activities to which the pupils have 

 been accustomed. They will then better understand the new 

 thoughts, which will react and make plainer the old ones, 

 thus making the school life and home life act and react upon 

 each other, and develop into an unbroken whole. Teachers 

 should give abundant observations, but require only the 

 simplest inferences from the smaller pupils. Let pupils sug- 

 gest and perform experiments illustrating the laws of nature. 

 Plan and give field lessons where things being studied may 

 be seen under natural conditions. Visit places of industry 

 and sources of supply of useful things. 



Thoughts and principles acquired in this way may be 

 strengthened by letting the children express them orally, or 

 in writing, drawing, painting, making, etc. Base the lessons 

 upon the actual work or observations of the pupils, and when 

 a principle is understood, function it by discovering where it 

 is used in nature or by man. 



For example, when the principle of capillary attraction is 

 developed by a common laboratory experiment such as 

 inserting a small glass tube into water and noting that water 

 rises therein and that the finer the tube the higher the water 

 rises, many illustrations of this law should be given, such 

 as the absorbing power of the sponge, lamp wick, towel, 

 blotting paper, etc. Afterwards, in discussing other topics 

 where capillarity is involved, refer back to the principle again 

 in showing, for example, how the sap in plants circulates, or 

 the blood in the capillaries of animals, etc. Even in the 



