8 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:1— Jan, 1915 



I would not for a moment be understood to assert that no 

 scientific man upheld the nature-study idea in the universities 

 during this period. The work of such men as Shaler, Hodge, 

 the Coulters, Jenkins, Kellogg, Bailey, Comstock, Schmucker, 

 and many others deserves the most profound gratitude from 

 every nature lover. Nor would I ignore the debt that nature- 

 study owes to scientific ideals, the chief of those being the whole- 

 hearted search for truth. Perhaps in the end, this emphasizing 

 the fundamental need of truthfulness will have compensated for 

 all that nature-study suffered at the beginning from the narrow 

 arrogance of the Man with the Microtome. 



It is the nature-study idea mainly that has been responsible 

 for the salutary changes that have been taking place in the teach- 

 ing of biological sciences in the secondary schools. The idea is at 

 last filtering through educational systems, that to appreciate and 

 understand the structure of a bird the pupil should have seen a 

 few birds in the woods and fields and there have studied their 

 habits and learned something of their ways and problems.. How- 

 ever, the work of nature-study in this matter has only begun. 

 When it finally accomplishes its mission the pupils that come up 

 to the universities from the high-schools will understand what 

 the professor of morphology is trying to teach, and those who 

 never come to universities at all will be able to go out into the 

 fields and without the aid of books or teachers read the lessons 

 in God's great laboratory. 



Nor, is this influence limited to teaching in secondary schools. 

 The nature-study idea has finally made itself felt through the 

 Ecologists in the universities. Where twenty-five or thirty 

 years ago such a person as a field naturalist in any specialty, was 

 rarely to be found among the students of the universities, now there 

 are many institutions where such a person is not an anomaly. 



Not the least beneficent results of the nature-study influence 

 are those seen in the change of teaching methods in the elementary 

 schools, where nature-study has become well established. These 

 benefits are manifold, but there are two which deserve special 

 consideration: First, that nature-study gives an inspiring thought 

 core for routine work, and, second, it is of great aid in establishing 

 a new and salutary kind of discipline. 



"Ideas before words" was one of Agassiz's mottoes. What an 

 illumination this should be for the elementary teacher. The child 



