1 8 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



taught nature study. And when you have taught 

 nature study, you will have taught your pupil to 

 be interested in the objects on the earth in his 

 own vicinage. The result is worth its cost. 



Or to express the same thing a little more con- 

 cisely : 



Nature study is the creating and the increasing 

 of a loving acquaintance with nature. This shall 

 begin and continue so informally in love, that, 

 sooner or later, it shall welcome the accompani- 

 ment of formal knowledge. Both together, both 

 head and heart, and both in earnest, shall increase 

 our enjoyment of life, and our capacity to en- 

 joy it. 



In either case the definition is rather long and 

 entirely superfluous. If you know what the thing 

 is, you do not need the definition ; if you do not 

 know, or rather, if you do not feel, it is beyond 

 the power of words to convey the thought. 



