HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT IOI 



and it covers ground that the individual sciences 

 do not even touch. 



Teach nature study by the natural, boy-and-girl 

 method. That is the way John Burroughs, William 

 Hamilton Gibson, and others got more than 

 seventy-five per cent, of their knowledge of na- 

 ture, and from that rough-and-ready natural 

 method of acquiring it, they gained a full store- 

 house, from which each drew according to his 

 own testimony, for all the rest of his life. 



We should teach this nature study in this hap- 

 hazard, natural unsystematic manner, just as 

 things come to hand, or as we are able to plan for 

 their coming to hand. With it and beyond it we 

 should teach and study science, strict, accurate, 

 scientific science. 



I would give to every boy or girl as nearly as 

 possible the same that the wide-awake child in 

 the country has, or what Whittier calls the 

 " Knowledge never learned of schools." And on 

 that solid foundation I would build the noble, 

 valuable superstructure called science. 



I would have the boys and girls rush over to the 

 apple tree, pick up handfuls of apples, putting 

 some in pocket and munching the rest. That is na- 

 ture study in the natural manner. I would have 



