NATURE STUDY 



NATURE STUDY 



fare with air. They live in it and yet scarcely 

 know it as something distinct, and much less with 

 reference to its essential properties concerning 

 the preservation of life. * * * * 



Therefore, these children who spend all their 

 time in the fields and forests see and feel nothing 

 >f the beauties of nature and of their influence 

 on the human heart. They are like the people 

 who have grown up in a very beautiful country, 

 and who have no idea of its beauty and its spirit. 

 * * 



It is important that boys and girls should go 

 into the fields and forests with adults, together 

 in;/ to receive into their hearts and minds 

 id spirit of nature. 



On the outdoor expeditions it is probably 

 : ible that the teacher, as far as possible, 

 should be an onlooker and let the children dis- 

 cover things for themselves. With very young 

 children no detailed study is possible, but with 

 older children interest may be keener if they 

 go out with the idea of searching for some 

 special insect or animal or plant or bird to 

 study in detail. There is infinite variety in the 

 things one finds to study. Seasonal changes, 

 for instance, mean changes in the whole aspect 

 of the world in which we live. These changes 

 can be studied in all their aspects. The study 

 of all the native wild birds and their habits, 

 the study of wild flowers and weeds, of trees, of 

 grubs and worms and insects, of a multitude of 

 little animals, of the physical formation of the 

 country round about here is material for a 

 lifetime of observation. 



Life and Death. Perhaps no greater danger 

 besets the pathway of the teacher than the 

 question involved in her pupils' attitude to- 

 wards life and death. It is inevitable that the 

 pupil will acquire a sympathetic interest in the 

 lives of the animals and plants studied, and 

 this is quite likely to check the vandalism 

 which most boys and girls have and which 

 Froebel says originates in the pupil's desire 

 "to obtain an insight into the inner life of the 

 animal, to get at its spirit." He also adds 

 that " failure to explain or to guide, as well as 

 interpretation or guidance, or the mis- 

 understanding of this desire, may at a later 

 period develop in boys hardened, intentional 

 cruelty to animals." Nature study is the surest 

 way to "explain and to guide" the pupil so that 

 he will want to protect all living creatures 

 plants and animals alike. 



One rule that will have to be made is that 

 one must never kill wantonly or cruelly. Death 

 in itself is not terrible. It is as natural and 

 inevitable as life, and it need not be empha- 

 sized any more than the fact that creatures eat 

 or fall asleep. When the pupil begins garden- 



ing he will learn that we have among plants 

 both friends and foes, that woods are foes and 

 that many insects are foes. In studying the 

 life cycle of a cabbage butterfly in one of the 

 insect cages the pupil becomes interested in Un- 

 living insect. He sees its development from 

 yellow egg to the velvety green caterpillar, 

 from the chrysalis to the white-winged butter- 

 fly, and to kill it would be unthinkable. Hut 

 lator. when the child is watering and cultivat- 

 ing his cabbage plants and the butterfly comes 

 along as an enemy, it should seem quite nor- 

 mal to him to spray the cabbages so that the 

 butterfly will die. But, to gain knowledge of 

 the life story of insects or other creatures is 

 nature study ; to destroy them as pests is a part 

 of agriculture or horticulture. The one may 

 be of fundamental assistance to the other, but 

 the two are quite separate and should never be 

 confused. 



Materials for Study. The whole outdoor 

 world is the material for nature study. The 

 subject matter might be classified in this way: 

 animal life, under which will come the study 

 of birds, fish, batrachians or amphibians, rep- 

 tiles, mammals, and insects; plant life, under 

 which will come the study of wild flowers, cul- 

 tivated plants, flowerless plants, and trees; and 

 another division might be called earth and sky. 

 Doubtless this sounds rather formidable. Such 

 a course it might well take a lifetime to cover; 

 but it is really much less formidable than it 

 sounds. The child cannot learn to know all the 

 wild flowers, but he can learn most of those in 

 his immediate neighborhood. Perhaps only a 

 few will be studied in detail, but this study will 

 enable him to observe other plants intelligently 

 for himself, to take the concrete example as a 

 basis of comparison with other examples. In 

 studying birds, a minute study of one species 

 will give him the key to all the other birds he 



And it must be borne constantly in mind 

 that these subjects are not to be taught as a 

 science, but merely as an interesting course of 

 observations on living things. There was for- 

 merly a tendency to make nature study a study 

 of dead things, but this has been changed. Not 

 stuffed birds, but birds on the wing; not the 

 dead moth impaled on a pin, but the moth 

 hovering around a flame; not the mounted 

 specimen butterfly, but the butterfly dipping 

 into the flower cups; not pictured jungle ani- 

 mals, but animals with which the child is fa- 

 miliarthese should furnish the basis for nature 

 study lessons. 





