VI PREFA CE 



Teachers sometimes like to take up the plant as an 

 entirety, before discussing its parts. Familiar plants 

 may be brought before the class, and the different 

 parts pointed out, as stems, roots, leaves, flowers. This 

 is desirable with children, but its usefulness is com- 

 monly not great, except as a brief introduction to more 

 serious observation. The pupil should be taught to see 

 accurately and in detail ; and it is always well to lead 

 him to make suggestions as to the meaning and uses 

 of the features which he has seen. 



In approaching the subject of nature -study, we 

 must first ask why we desire to teach natural history 

 subjects in the primary and secondary schools. There 

 can be but two answers: we teach either for the sake 

 of imparting the subject itself, or for the sake of the 

 pupil. When we have the pupil chiefly in mind, 

 we broaden his sympathies, multiply his points of con- 

 tact with the world, quicken his imagination, and 

 thereby deepen his life ; a graded and systematic 

 body of facts is of secondary importance. In other 

 words, when the teacher thinks chiefly of his sub- 

 ject, he teaches a science ; when he thinks chiefly 

 of his pupil, he teaches nature -study. The child 

 loves nature ; but when he becomes a youth, and has 

 passed the intermediate years in school, the nature - 

 instinct is generally obscured and sometimes obliterated. 

 The perfunctory teaching of science may be a respon- 

 sible factor in this result. There seem to be four 



