58 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



Yes and no. It all depends upon where you 

 stand and what you do and how you do it. You 

 may find natural objects useful in your language 

 teaching and in your drawing lessons, but do not 

 let it end there. Have some nature study some- 

 times uppermost in your mind, with or without 

 language lessons, according to circumstances and 

 the preferences of the pupils. " These ought ye to 

 have done, and not to leave the other undone." 



All these things are from the negative, that is, 

 from the prohibitive or cautioning point of view. 

 The positive also exists, but with it there is no 

 danger of correlating too much. 



Incidentally and to such limited extent as may 

 be found necessary, there is manual training. 

 Instead of having the pupils in that department 

 wholly occupied in making patent boot-jacks, 

 wooden nutmegs, or in engraving Chinese hiero- 

 glyphics on blocks, good as all these things may 

 be from an artistic point of view, let some of the 

 most active and practical boys make things to be 

 used in nature study. There is the doing before 

 the seeing, and spontaneous activity and original 

 observation are the prime essentials of true nature 

 study. 



For plant life we want the germinating case, the 



