330 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8 :9— Dec. 1912 



Study, children should learn to do those things which will have 

 repeated applications, and in the doing of which the children get 

 control over them, to the end that they will increasingly utilize 

 their physical surroundings. This procedure is in accordance with 

 the present aims of education and also with human happiness and 

 progress. 



From the beginning, nature study has concerned itself almost 

 wholly with those materials which belong to the biological sciences. 

 In the growth of the subject, aims have shifted until now it is 

 generally conceded that so far as constructive plant work is con- 

 cerned the effort should be to produce vigorous growing plants to 

 be used in various ways. For example, children are furnished op- 

 portunities to grow flowering plants for school and home decora- 

 tion, or vegetables and other useful plants ; furthermore, in after 

 life they will want, and know how to grow these and other 

 plants. In such work children are getting control over plants by 

 their experiences with them. And this seems to the writer to be 

 the best way to get such control. 



What is true for biological nature study is equally true for 

 physical and chemical nature study, namely, all nature study 

 should make an appeal to children at the time they are working 

 at it, and in addition it should be worth while in later times. 



One of the fundamentals with which children and other peo- 

 ple everywhere are concerned is the law of the lever. A study 

 with some of its apphcations therefore might be made with profit 

 and pleasure by the children of the upper grades in our elementary 

 schools. A satisfactory place to begin such study has been found 

 in the use of a simple equal-armed balance. Such a balance to- 

 gether with weights may be made by the children with such tools 

 as they may have at home. The balances could be constructed at 

 home, or they may be made in the manual training shop at school. 

 A simple and satisfactory balance may be made of three pieces 

 of wood and of pans and thread. The pieces of wood are the 

 base 4"x4" and f '' thick, an upright support f'xf " and 8'' long, 

 and a beam -^^e^xf and 12|'' long. The upright is mortised into 

 the base and the beam supported by a pin in the upright near the 

 top. Scale pans are made from the tops of baking powder cans, 

 and are supported by means of thread. The essentials of a good 

 balance that children can make are two: First, the arms must 

 be equal and constant in length (the arms are those parts of the 

 beam between the support, fulcrum, and the points of suspension 

 of the pans), and secondly, the beam should have a free and easy 

 movement on the fulcrum. It is not necessary for the beam to 



