davisox] XATL'RE-STUDY AXD PHYSIOLOGY 135 



hundred simple machines in and about coal mines, and seemed 

 much more interested in the application of pulleys, levers, and 

 inclined planes, than in plants or animals. 



I am disposed to criticise the fraternity of normal school teach- 

 ers in that we teach what we learned in college, rather than look 

 over the field that our students are to work in and then instil into 

 them the things environing the child. 



I believe this should be done so thoroughly that no normal 

 school graduate will ever try to teach physical laws, or begin 

 animal nature-study with "Natural Selection." Teach them to 

 begin with objects rather than principles and take those objects 

 from the door yard, not from the South Sea Islands. 



NATURE-STUDY AND PHYSIOLOGY 



By ALVIN DAVfsON 

 Lafayette College. Easton, Pa. 

 [Abstract of remarks at A. X. S. S., meeting.] 



Xature-study has been tried in many schools and a considerable 

 number of them have dropped it because it seemed to have but 

 little practical value. It is refused a place in many school pro- 

 grams because the number of studies is already too great and the 

 matter presented as nature-study has been of such a character 

 as to have but little influence on human welfare. If general 

 nature-study is to become a part of the elementary school work 

 in the majority of schools, it must be allied with the specific 

 nature-study, physiology, now taught in nearly all schools of the 

 lower grades. A considerable portion of the large amount of time 

 required by law to be devoted to physiology could very profita- 

 bly be given to a study of the food of birds and insects, to the 

 inter-relation of plant and animal life, and to the character of 

 molds, yeasts and bacteria as they affect human life. The sub- 

 ject of clothing and health gives opportunity to consider how air 

 and soil by means of the mulberry tree and silk-worm may be 

 transformed into silk, and how the same inanimate materials by 

 means of the cotton plant may be changed into cotton clothing. 

 The study of the life-histories of the bugs, flies and mosquitoes so 

 intimately related to health has an enduring interest for the young 

 and is of high educational value, while at the same time it is an 

 important part of the subject of modern hygiene. In many other 

 ways a large amount of nature-study can be linked with 

 physiology. 



