134 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [5:5— may, 1909 



know about plants as complete individuals, how, when and where 

 they grow, how they are pollinated, how the seeds are distributed 

 and what special methods plants have for getting on in the 

 world, the better it will be. Mere technical names such as ovate, 

 serrate, palmate, lanceolate, excurrent, deliquescent, hypogynous, 

 polypetalous, etc., with which the infant memory is too often 

 crowded, are not at all desirable. They are but left-overs from 

 the long ago when botany consisted chiefly in analyzing flowers. 

 If names are to be taught let them be such terms as blade, 

 petiole, stipules, wood, bark, pitch, sap-wood, heart-wood, coty- 

 ledon, caulicle, plumule, sepal, petal, stamen, carpel, pollen, 

 ovule and such others as they are likely to have use for through- 

 out life whether they take botany or not. And when these are 

 learned, let the pupil compare the parts of the plant which they 

 represent with similar parts of other plants, noting differences of 

 form and function. Then, indeed, will the botany teacher rejoice 

 and sing the praises of nature-study forever. 



INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT ON NATURE-STUDY 



By JOHN L. RANDALL 



Science Dept., Normal School, California, Pa. 



[Notes on discussion at Baltimore meeting of A. N. S. S.] 



The Nature-Study Review has already published lengthy 

 discussions on the confines and limits of this subject ; a subject 

 that within the domains of natural science has no other boundary 

 than the child's environment. The phase of the subject to be 

 taken up should depend very largely on the environment. That 

 is, the teacher, or those preparing teachers for the country school, 

 should place greatest emphasis on elementary agriculture, while 

 the city teacher will have other subjects near at hand that will be 

 more vital to the child. 



My own experience in one of the greatest industrial regions of 

 the world, the Monongahela River Valley, Pa., leads me to believe 

 that some very good nature work may be done there, using 

 physical science as the basis. 



The people of Western Pennsylvania deal not with agriculture 

 principally, but with coal mining and steel manufacturing, so that 

 the most interesting nature-study to the child of this region can 

 be taken from "Simple Machines" of physics. To illustrate, a 

 class from the sixth grade of our training school, named over one 



