52 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



I read no further, but I am sure the mountain 

 backed out of the fight, if I may judge from the 

 squirrel's attitude and expression. It was artis- 

 tic, and certainly artistically realistic from the 

 child's standpoint. 



Then appeared " Seaside and Wayside " stories 

 retold with drawings, almost as good as the orig- 

 inals. 



Perhaps the most attractive was the work in 

 water-color. A bouquet of roses painted by a 

 child eight years of age was indeed remarkable, 

 and so I went over the drawings of daisies, maple 

 keys, wild geraniums, dogs, and horses. I felt a 

 tinge of disappointment when I saw that the 

 flowers had been drawn in the winter term, some 

 with the aid of outlines on the sheets, and had 

 been colored ad libitum, or by the direction of 

 the teacher. 



Yet it was all good work in drawing and lan- 

 guage, most of it having been made from outlines 

 and books, while only a few samples had been 

 made directly from nature. 



The trouble was that I was talking to the nature 

 supervisor and not to the teacher of drawing or of 

 language, and my questioner was persistent. She 



