Astronomy as a Nature-Study 



E. A. Path 



We pity the person who does not love the birds and the flowers, 

 who is obHvious of the beauties of the sunset, who cannot see the 

 forces of nature working incessantly in the blowing of the winds 

 and the running of the waters but what must be our feeling to- 

 ward the one who gazes with unseeing eye on the beauties of the 

 star-spangled heavens, who sees in the moon only a brilliant disk 

 which his grandfather used to predict changes in the weather, or 

 who sits before the winter fire and sees only the blaze and cannot 

 trace it back to its origin in the great sun itself? The primary 

 object in Nature-Study, if I understand it aright, is the broaden- 

 ing of the whole nature of the child by giving him a syrripathetic 

 knowledge of his surroundings. He is taught botany, zoology 

 and geology, but, so far as I have been able to learn, astronomy, 

 the oldest and most all-embracing of the sciences, is hardly touched 

 upon. The one subject which alone will disclose the beauty, the 

 vastness and the grandeur of the physical universe is neglected. 



There are several reasons for this state of affairs but the primary 

 one I believe to be a misconception on the part of the teachers 

 themselves. In speaking to them about astronomy the most com- 

 mon remark is *'I would like to know something about the sun, 

 moon and stars but, you know, I was never very good in mathe- 

 matics and of course it is impossible to learn anything about 

 astronomy without knowing a great deal about that subject." 

 This idea that a knowledge of advanced mathematics is prerequi- 

 site to an understanding of even elementary astronomy is so 

 deep-rooted that thousands have lost the pleasure of knowing 

 something about the "friendly stars" because of it. As a matter 

 of fact no more mathematics is required to study elementary 

 astronomy than to study the simple facts of botany or even 

 geography. We take it for granted that all children should learn 

 certain facts about our planet by studying maps of its surface 

 but we do not trouble them with the more or less complicated 

 mathematical basis of map making. In the same way they can 

 learn some of the interesting facts about the great universe in 

 which we live without having their minds filled with the mathe- 

 matical relations of those facts. A map of the sky is as easy to 



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