GREGG] HYGIESE AS SATIRE STUDY 225 



sense of incompleteness which tends to support interest, to stim- 

 ulate and encourage further study, and to give a proper appre- 

 ciation and evaluation of the subject. 



Hygiene as ISature Study 



F. M. Gregg. 

 Part I. 



IXTRODUCTORV. 



The "blessed trinity of chance, accident, and mistake" is 

 apt to be operative in the pioneer days of all great movements. 

 The conviction is now widespread that much of the futility and 

 unpopularity of physiology and hygiene in the grades is due to 

 the unhappily chosen matter and unprofitable manner of pre- 

 senting the subject to its supposed beneficiaries. The matter has 

 been too technical, and the manner has been too exclusively 

 bookish. There has been lack of proper motivation, the topical 

 selection has been logical rather than psychological, and the ap- 

 peal has been remote and individual rather than immediate and 

 social. 



Many schools and institutions have been struggling for 

 better things, among them the Training School of the Peru. 

 Xebr., State Normal. In this latter institution an effort has been 

 made through the last three years to work out a more satisfactory 

 course in Hygiene (no technical physiolog)- is taught below the 

 eighth grade), with the result that while the course is not yet 

 entirely satisfactory the pupils as a whole in the fifth and sixth 

 grades, in which the greater part of this work has been done, have 

 come to regard hygiene as their most interesting subject. 



The general plan for the lessons employed calls for (a) the 

 selection of some nature study topic that allies itself with hygiene, 

 (b) the study of the same in the typical nature-study way. (c) 

 the drawing of conclusions that have a bearing on the subject 

 of hygiene by the pupils, (d) the establishment of such habits 

 by the pupils as properly grow out of the topic treated. It is 

 hoped that the series of articles to appear in the Nature Study 

 Review may help to get the general method before a wider con- 

 stituency, and may secure from that constituency such criticism 

 as may result in a less imperfect presentation. 



Let it be said that this series of articles is written with fourth 

 and fifth grade pupils in mind, subject to wider use with adapta- 

 tions. 



