INTRODUCTION. XV 



useful and injurious plants and animals, about wholesome 

 and unwholesome habits, about the loves of the plants and 

 animals, about the inter-relations of things in the web of 

 life, about the intertwining of nature activities and human 

 activities it is all of use ; and yet the Nature Study in 

 schools will miss its aim if it becomes too practical, just 

 as it does if it become too emotional or too scientific. For 

 here, as in so many other cases, we come back to the 

 familiar truth that educational aims and method are sound 

 in proportion as they recognise the three sides of our nature 

 knowing, feeling, and doing : head, heart, and hand. 



As to methods, the illustration of which occupies so much 

 of Dr. Eennie's book, they may be reduced to three so 

 easily stated, so difficult to follow. 



(1) "We must be objective and practical throughout, 

 studying real things, remembering what a wise man once 

 said, " The better half of a liberal education may be ob- 

 tained without books at all." I hope this book will help 

 the teacher to get free from books in Nature Study. 

 They are means, his slaves ; he must not be theirs. 



(2) We must keep along Socratic or heuristic lines, 

 asking questions, stimulating questions. One good ques- 

 tion asked us is of more value than many answers. 

 Nature is a rare Euclid, and the pupil must be encouraged 

 to solve its problems, and he will never do this if he is told 

 too much. 



(3) More subtle is the quality of vitality, the dynamic 

 method. Unless the plant be felt as a living creature 

 growing, feeding, breathing, digesting, moving, feeling, 

 even struggling the gist of the business? has been missed. 

 Of course Nature Study includes much that is not living, 

 but the study of everything even of the dust may be 

 vitalised. 



Many detailed hints rise in my mind as the results of 

 many mistakes. Big words, be they ever so comforting, 



