INQUIRIES 137 



graduates do not take up efficient work for them- 

 selves, feeling that they cannot do so without 

 much equipment. Make the most of common 

 and simple subjects in nature-study. Leave the 

 extensive outfits to teachers of science. The two 

 pieces of apparatus that you most need are an 

 aquarium for things that live in water and a terrarium 

 for those that live on land. These become 

 " scenes of life " and supplement the outdoors. 



hit "thorough"? 



" I do not believe in your nature-study move- 

 ment," a high school teacher said, "for it does 

 not lead to thoroughness in school work." I 

 asked her to explain what she meant by thorough- 

 ness. She took me to her schoolroom. It was a 

 laboratory. Pupils of sixteen and seventeen were 

 studying the cell. For three weeks the pupils had 

 been working on the cell, and they were to con- 

 tinue the work for a month. This, she told me, 

 was thoroughness. I agreed with her. "But of 

 what value is this knowledge to the pupil ? " I asked. 

 "The pupil knows the cell," she replied, "and 

 to know the cell is to understand the structure 

 and growth of the plant." 



I, too, [believe in thoroughness, but there is 

 one thoroughness of mere details and another 

 thoroughness of the broader view. So far as 

 mere thoroughness is concerned, one kind may be 

 as perfect as the other. Thoroughness consists only 

 in seeing something accurately and understanding 

 what it means. We can never know all that there 

 is to be learned about any object. Even the 



