lOO THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [i, 3, may 1905 



it is needed in the process of education. It need not be implied 

 by what has been said that the child must always be wallowing 

 up to his ears in material. There are times when he should 

 depend upon what has been observed. However most teachers 

 will err by not having enough material on hand when it is needed, 

 rather than by having too much. 



Again, there are teachers who seem to think that they must 

 develop everything in nature-study. The recitation resolves itself 

 into a pumping process. The operator works hard and overtime 

 at this educational pump, with now and then a spasmodic wheeze 

 as a result. The well is dry. The pump is primed with questions 

 at the rate of one hundred during a twenty-minute recitation. 

 The result is a crop of stories made up to fit the demand. Others 

 go fishing for ideas, using every kind of bait known to the peda- 

 gogical angler. Occasionally a nibble gives hopes to the fisher- 

 man and he feels certain that he is about to land an educational 

 trout, but as he reels in his line he finds that he has nothing but 

 a bunch of weeds from the bottom of the stream. There is no use 

 fishing where there are no fish. 



Occasionally a teacher gets the idea that nature-study teaching 

 consists in carrying on, before her class, a series of entertain- 

 ments along the line of experiments, something of the pyrotechnic 

 order. If these are carried on long enough pupils will lose in- 

 terest in the more common things about them and hunger for a 

 show when the nature-study period arrives. There are times 

 when these experiments are just the thing, but as a rule an experi- 

 ment is a difficult thing for the child mind to comprehend because 

 nature is tampered with and the child cannot see the setting of 

 what takes place. It is quite essential that we cultivate in the 

 child the right mental attitude for the common things about him 

 and that he comes to see in them that which is worthy of his 

 attention. 



