- EDITORIALS 233 



EDITORIALS 



HELPING BEGINNERS IN NATURE-STUDY TEACHING 



In various forms from several hundred persons has come the 

 question whether The Nature-Study Review is valuable for the 

 general teachers in the elementary schools as well as for those 

 readers — officers, special directors, high-school teachers of sci- 

 ence, and college professors — who are interested in nature-study 

 from the standpoint of the supervisor. One principal of a school 

 in a small town writes : " Nature-study has been introduced into 

 our school. Our teachers know nothing about it, and many of 

 them can scarcely distinguish a grasshopper from a potato-beetle. 

 If The Nature-Study Review will give these teachers the help 

 needed, we will subscribe for several copies." Essentially the 

 same thought is expressed in more than a hundred other letters 

 from teachers who admit that they feel totally unprepared for na- 

 ture-study teaching. 



Now, it must be obvious to all experts in nature-study that a 

 magazine can not offer the best form of instruction for teachers 

 who are beginners in both the subject-matter and the teaching of 

 nature-study. Such persons will certainly do best to study first 

 the subject-matter, with instructors if possible, otherwise with the 

 guidance of some of the many books and leaflets intended for 

 beginners. But those beginners who are earnestly striving to ad- 

 vance as far as possible will surely find much of interest and 

 value in this magazine, especially in the practical articles which 

 are published in every issue and which in the future will be more 

 abundant. The editors are doing their best to make The Re-, 

 VIEW interesting and useful to all groups of readers, beginjiis^s as 

 well as experts ; but to undertake to make it take the place of 

 training-school courses for nature-study teachers would be as ab- 

 surd as substituting a few volumes of education reports and 

 journals for a regular program of studies in a normal school. 

 Educational journals are commonly regarded as valuable for pro- 

 gressive teachers rather than for those who are preparing to be- 

 gin teaching. 



A. MAGAZINE FOR THE LEADERS OF NATURE-STUDY 



It must be clear from the foregoing that The Review aims 

 primarily to reach the teachers who have already made some 

 progress in nature-study and its teaching. But above all, it must 



