176 The Nature-Study Idea 



teachers if the teacher arrives at the nature- 

 study way of teaching. I mean by this that 

 the quality of the teaching may be good, quite 

 independent of its quantity. Of course, we do 

 not find a subject or a class under the name of 

 nature-study in the one-teacher schools to any 

 extent. What I mean by the nature-study spirit 

 is to teach the things nearest at hand in a 

 natural way and with the welfare of the child 

 always in mind. 



I am sure that it is perfectly possible to teach 

 a child correctly and to put him into direct and 

 sympathetic touch with the world he lives in by 

 beginning with the biological and general phases 

 of his environment even though he does not 

 know the underlying chemical and physical 

 processes and reasons. In fact, I am convinced 

 that we must give up the idea that the child at 

 first must know the so-called fundamental pro- 

 cesses before he can know objects and phe- 

 nomena. As a matter of fact, not one of us in 

 the world, even the best of us, really knows 

 the fundamental facts. We have merely gone 

 a little further than some others have gone, 



