254 THE NA TURE-STUD V RE VIE W [3 : 9-„ec., 1907 



more or less interesting materials with which the child is becoming 

 acquainted. Acquaintance with particular not general features 

 of nature is the child's purpose in so far as he has a purpose. 

 'When the period arises during which nature may be studied 

 primarily as a home for man, as well as made up of things and 

 processes of intrinsic interest, the spirit of acquaintance with 

 nature which characterizes the first period is not lost, but is en- 

 larged and given a new field for development. Similarly near 

 the close of the grammar-school period, when whatever was left 

 of nature-study after geography branched from it divides into 

 zoology, botany, physiology, physics, chemistry, geology, physio- 

 graphy and astronomy, there continues to be carried into these 

 fields the desire for acquaintanceship found in the first period, 

 the desire for knowledge of relationship to men which is found 

 in geography, and the desire for knowledge of special nature 

 problems which is found in nature-study. All of these desires 

 are present to some extent with the desire for knowledge of the 

 separate sciences. 



It is evident that there can be no closely drawn line between the 

 periods cited above, since one period gradually develops into the 

 succeeding one. Any statement as to the age of children or 

 school grade in which the oneness of nature become differentiated 

 into geography and other nature studies, must be somewhat 

 arbitrary. In actual practice it would seem that recognizing 

 this difi^erentiation at the end of the third regular school, or 

 possibly at the end of the fourth year, would best meet the aver- 

 age of "conditions. It seems necessary that there be a better 

 recognition of the unity of nature-study and geography in the 

 lower grades of school work and of the constant and necessary 

 overlaping of these subjects in succeeding grades. Failure to 

 recognize these things must result in much confusion and duplica- 

 tion of effort. If geography is "The Study of the Earth and its 

 Inhabitants," it is somewhat difficult to discover a field of nature- 

 study outside the boundaries of geography, and it would be 

 better to leave the organization of nature-study to those who are 

 responsible for the teaching of geography. If geography deals 

 with those features of nature that have to do directly with the 

 earth as a home for man, it represents one point of view of nature 

 and should not determine the arrangement of nature materials 

 that are undifferentiated as to special sciences. It becomes 



