BiGELOw] VALUES AND AIMS OF NATURE-STUDY SS 



Study ought to teach the pupils to appreciate the value of knowl- 

 edge demonstrated to be true so far as our senses can determine ; 

 and it ought to teach them to compare facts, judge their values, 

 and arrange them with reference to other facts. In short, nature- 

 study properly conducted ought to give the first training in the 

 scientific method in which natural-science studies are able to give 

 more advanced and more complete training. Along this line 

 we have, I believe, one of the greatest values of nature-study — 

 one which we have scarcely begun to appreciate and in which is 

 the possibility of greatest advance in nature-study. As will be 

 suggested in a later section of this paper, with advances in devel- 

 oping the disciplinary value there will come improved selections 

 of more valuable subject-matter. 



But we must not defend nature-study simply on the ground 

 that the method of study affords discipline in observing, experi- 

 menting, judging, reasoning, etc. The value of such mental 

 processes depends largely upon the ability to apply them in 

 useful lines in every-day life. Karl Pearson admits that, while 

 science-study trains the judgment, it does not necessarily follow 

 that the scientific man has good judgment in every-day life involv- 

 ing fields other than sciences, because he may not be able to 

 carry his scientific method outside the field in which he has 

 acquired it. Likewise, the discipline afforded by nature-study 

 will be valuable in proportion to the pupil's ability to apply it in 

 a useful way. A pupil trained to see the details of structure or 

 activity in a particular object on which attention has been specially 

 centered may not be any better able to observe things in general 

 as he meets them in daily life; and moreover the trained ability 

 to note details is not necessarily associated with ability to discover 

 points of general human interest. As an example, the detailed 

 study of postage stamps might well train the observation, but 

 training to observe with regard to the peculiarities of postage 

 stamps does not mean expertness of observation, although per- 

 haps some improvement, with regard to other things, e. g., com- 

 mon objects in nature. Therefore we could not justify a detailed 

 study of postage stamps on the sole ground that it trains the ob- 

 serving powers, because the value of this is doubtful so far as 

 useful application of the training is concerned. But a study of 

 postage stamps with reference to the history and geography which 

 they suggest might be made a very useful exercise, because the 



