CARROL] ELEMENTARY SCIENCE COURSE 257 



lack of knowledge of normal students regarding the most elemen- 

 tary of common nature forms is astonishing. An instructor in one 

 of our normals has made a careful record of students entering his 

 classes for a number of years and he reports that the average high 

 school pupil coming into his classes knows about eight birds, eight 

 trees and eight insects. 



With this meager training given in normal schools teachers are 

 expected to go into schools and teach nature-study. Some teach- 

 ers do .teach nature-study very satisfactorily regardless of the 

 unimportant place it holds in most courses of study. If an outline 

 for this course is available it is generally indefinite and very little 

 attention paid to carrying it through the grades. Each teacher 

 may teach nature-study if she chooses ; if she does not wish to do 

 so she may use her time allotted to that subject in some other way. 



There is little satisfaction for a teacher to spend time in preparing 

 a lesson which has no definite place in the curriculum and for which 

 she feels absolute lack of preparation. The largeness of content of 

 a nature-study course makes a short period of study of little value 

 to a teacher who has had no other means of learning subjects 

 included in the course. Since the content of the course is so varied 

 and the field so large the subject can never be satisfactorily taught 

 until more time is allowed for nature-study in courses offered to 

 teachers. 



"No one can be a successful teacher of nature-study without a 

 genuine enthusiasm for the subject as no one without a passion for 

 the works of great authors can accomplish the best results in the 

 teaching of literature. "^ — Hough. 



**The teacher should forage widely and incessantly and bring 

 everything within reach in his field to his class. "^ — G. Stanley HalL 



B. In Agricultural Colleges and Universities 



Perhaps no other department in education has made more 

 progress in the last decade than the department of agricultural 

 education. This department is closely associated with the progres- 

 sive nature-study movement and in many agricultural colleges 

 courses in agriculture are offered for high school teachers. Some- 

 thing of the extent of this work is shown in the report of the U. S 

 Department of Agriculture for the year of 1906, by Dick J. Crosby. 



^Hall's Adoloscenc-e. 



