CHAPTER VI 



WHY NO SCHEDULES FOR NATURE STUDY 



What is nature study ? It is a point of view. It is the ac- 

 quirement of sympathy with nature, which means sympathy 

 with what is. 



As a pedagogical ideal, nature study is teaching the youth 

 to see and to know the thing nearest at hand, to the end 

 that his life may be fuller and richer. Primarily, nature 

 study, as the writer conceives it, is not knowledge. He 

 would avoid the leaflet that gives nothing but information. 

 Nature study is not method. Of necessity each teacher will 

 develop a method ; but this method is the need of the 

 teacher, not of the subject. 



Nature study is not to be taught for the purpose of mak- 

 ing the youth a specialist or a scientist. Now and then a 

 pupil will desire to pursue a science for the sake of the 

 science, and he should be encouraged. But every pupil may 

 be taught to be interested in plants and birds and insects and 

 running brooks, and thereby his life will be the stronger. 

 The crop of scientists will take care of itself. — Professor L. 

 H. Bailey, Professor of Horticulture at Cornell university. 



Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty sched- 

 ules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They 

 do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the 

 popular view, or rather the popular method of studying 

 nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil 

 only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell. — 

 Henry D. ThorEau, the sage of Walden. 



Professor Bailey is a prominent scientist of the 

 present day, whose writings are chiefly scientific. 



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