398 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 111:9— Dec, 1915 



beans soaked 12 hours, beans soaked 48 hours or longer, in sufficient 

 quantity to place seeds in each stage in the hands of the pupils. 

 He questions to evolve comparisons of the conditions of each and 

 observations of the changes in the seed-organs. You would call 

 this an object-lesson but in the attempt to make a complete nature 

 study in a 20-minute instruction period what more can any one 

 do ? Of course it falls far short of a richly educative investigation 

 of the germination of the bean in which the child has treated the 

 seeds from the start and has, under intelligent direction and ques- 

 tioning, periodically examined the awakening seeds and the develop- 

 ing plantlets. Nature studies worthy of the name are seldom 

 exercises to be begun, continued and ended all in a single recitation 

 period. But, on the contrary they are experiences in heuristic 

 practice occupying it may be five minutes to-day, ten minutes the 

 day after to-morrow, a quarter of an hour next week and longer or 

 shorter engagemicnts on several or many future occasions exclusive 

 of few or nurrerous investigations out of school-hours. 



It is clear that where teachers-in-training get their practice in 

 recurrent circuits of a score or more of class-rooms they can 

 neither practice nor observe the highest quality of work in nature- 

 study. At the time of writing I cannot say that I have seen 

 the practical work of the student-teacher carried higher than good 

 object-lesson teaching. 



Subject Matter Versus Method in the Normal School 



Gilbert H. Trafton 

 Mankato, Minn. 



The Normal School in its work of training teachers needs to give 

 its students at least four kinds of knowledge: First, knowledge of 

 the subject matter to be taught; second, knowledge of children; 

 third, knowledge ot the method by which these facts are to be 

 presented to the child and incorporated into his experiences, and 

 fourth, a knowledge of a much broader field of subject matter than 

 is to be taught the children. The knowledge of children comes 

 largely thru actual contact with them in the training school, so 

 that the teacher in the Normal School must give his attention 

 chiefly to the three other fields. 



It is evident that the first of these phases of knowledge is the 

 first essential for teaching. Knowledge of the facts to be taught 



