ullrich] NATURE-STUDY IN WISCONSIN 105 



jects in the normal schools. In the tabulation and analysis of 

 the replies, those from the city superintendents and village prin- 

 cipals were put into one group, and all others into another group. 



The weight and consideration that should be attached to the 

 answers that relate closely to the chief matter of interest in this 

 study, namely, point of view and content of Nature-Study cour- 

 ses, will depend in no small measure upon the extent to which 

 Nature-Study is taught in the state. It is a source of regret to 

 find that only 16 schools or 19% of the schools from which reports 

 were received on this question give systematic courses in 

 Nature-Study; 21 schools or 24% give incidental but not 

 systematic instruction, while 40 or 57% report that systematic 

 instruction in Nature-Study is not attempted, wtih no sug- 

 gestion that the subject is presented even in an incidental way, 

 such as, material for general exercises. Fifty distinct answers in 

 the way of objections to or difficulties in the presentation of 

 systematic courses were noted; 24 or 41% report "lack of time 

 or too much crowding of curriculum," 16 or 27% "unprepared- 

 ness of teachers to give the instruction," 7 or 12% 'lack of rel- 

 ative importance when compared with other subjects of the 

 elementary school," 3 mention "nothing has been introduced 

 along this line," 2 that "materials of the course are not organ- 

 ized," and 1 each, "courses get stereotyped and formal," mat- 

 erials not available," "lack of definite purpose," "work too wishy 

 -washy," "too much manual work," "large foreign element" and 

 last but most interesting of all, 'it is not always timely to be too 

 systematic in this work. You may wish to teach monoecious 

 flowers April 30, but the Lord may not send them until May 

 30." The members of the supervisory force of the state depart- 

 ment, the principals of the training schools and science instruc- 

 tors in the normal schools give 19 distinct answers in the way 

 of difficulties, 13 or 68% report "lack of qualified teachers 

 for the instruction," 13 or 16% "an over crowded curriculum," 

 one says "apriori belief of many schoolmen that science cannot 

 be taught to children," another "tendency to humanize know- 

 ledge forgetting that Nature-Study may be humanized," and 

 still another "courses that are offered are usually neither fish 

 nor flesh." 



The aims of Nature-Study given by the city superintend- 

 ents and village principals were quite readily and satisfac- 



