dearnkss] nature-study with insects 19 



"to put the pupil in a sympathetic attitude toward nature" (Bailey) ? 

 If the increase of love and sympathy is a criterion of the efficiency of 

 a nature-study lesson, what is to be said of teaching pupils to kill 

 and pin insects and of emphasizing the duty of destroying them 

 because they are said to levy an annual tax on the agriculturist of 

 795 millions of dollars? 



Both observation and experience convince me that to conduct a 

 nature-study lesson properly 1 must be an investigator in the field 

 where I am to require my pupils to make investigations. Applying 

 this conviction to lessons on the insect, what have I found ? I have 

 a garden; insects do a little harm there but also a great deal of good. 

 It would be only a guess, but probably within the truth, to say that 

 my garden owes a hundred times as much to insects as it is injured 

 by them. Without their beneficial aid I should not have any of my 

 prettiest flowers or my best fruits. My children's favorite pet, a 

 beautiful white cat, repays its board-bill, perhaps many times, by 

 protecting against the birds the insects that are so necessary to the 

 garden's welfare. Clearly my first-hand studies of insects and cats 

 do not lead me to follow Dr. Hodge in preaching their wholesale 

 destruction. Should not my pupils and I speak of things as we find 

 them ? If our sympathies err, had they better err on the side of 

 preservation of life or on the opposite one .'' 



The truth is that, having sole regard to utility, some insects 

 should be killed and others protected. I think I should make a mis- 

 take if I set out to give the child an emotional bias not justified by 

 the investigations made. My aim should be to train the child how 

 to discover truth through his self-activity. The proper emotional 

 attitude will naturally grow out of the properly conducted and prop- 

 erly completed observational study. 



Mere seeing and naming or seeing plus the excitement that accom- 

 panies an unexpected novelty, as in the case of the child that saw 

 the ichneumons make ' 'their way out of the caterpillar and spin their 

 cocoons on its back," is little if any better than the old object lesson. 

 To have the merit of education by nature the perceiving must be 

 attended with apperceiving, relating, reflecting, judging — in short 

 with all that stands for investigation, and not be simply an occasion 

 for information or entertainment. The real task is not in getting the 

 children to feed and watch the cabbage-worms, but in making the 

 exercise intellectually and emotionally profitable. 



Selecting topics for nature-study by Dr. Hodge's test — "the 



