256 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [10:7— Oct., 1914 



tunity for more electives. Other Normals in Ohio and Illinois offer 

 similar courses to the above. Columbia University, N. Y., 

 Chicago University, lU., Cornell Agricultural College, N. Y., and 

 Hampton University, Va., each offer two year riormal courses for 

 teachers and have offered special courses in nature-study). 



In most normals, however, the course given in nature-study is an 

 elective and should a student choose to omit the course some other 

 subject may be substituted. We find that other biological courses 

 are placed in the same class and as these subjects are also elective 

 in many high schools, it is possible for a student to complete 

 courses in both high school and normal without having taken any 

 subject under the head of nature-study. 



Most of the common subjects required in a normal course have 

 been required in high school so that the student is better prepared 

 to teach these subjects than she would be to teach nature-study, 

 even though she chooses to take the latter course at the normal. 

 Added to this disadvantage, most students know surprisingly little 

 about any subject introduced into the nature-study course, 

 because common forms of interest in out of door subjects were not 

 systematically taught when these students were in elerhentary 

 schools. As a result of previous training, most students must be 

 introduced to the many phases or groups of study coming under 

 the head of nature-study. Such groups usually include trees, 

 plants, gardening, insects, birds, pets, domestic animals, wild 

 animals, and physical phenomena ; these subjects being subdivided 

 into seasonal aspects relating to autumn, winter, spring and sum- 

 mer and again rearranged for an outline by grades. Let us review 

 briefly some of the points included under two of these subjects. 

 In the subjects of plants and gardening, students must learn to 

 identify a large number of wild flowers, common weeds, garden 

 plants, make an herbarium of one or more of these groups, study 

 germination of seeds, propagation of plants, study different kinds 

 of soil, best methods of planting, what to plant, how to lay out 

 gardens and the care of gardens. 



The hopelessness of teaching such a variety of new subjects in a 

 brief course is apparent. Nature-study is a subject which most 

 teachers enjoy but it is because of the meagemess of the course and 

 the feeling of inability to grasp the essential principles from such a 

 limitless fleld that teachers avoid the course or care little about 

 adding it to their other subjects when in the school room. The 



