110 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [12:3— Mch., 1916 



efficiency should not be gained at the price of insirfit and breadth;" 

 "To prepare for direct participation in the practice and science 

 of a trade;" "A prevocational course should rive such theoret- 

 ical, artistic and scientific training as is necessary to enable 

 the pupil to see in a trade more than merely a means for earn- 

 ing a livelihood", "Why cram vocation down the throats of 

 pupils all the time ? A steady diet of any kind will clog the liver. 

 Emphasize 'prevocational' if you must, but let some subjects 

 free from it to serve as a tonic and a 'cathartic.' Only thus 

 you can get growth." The impression left by a recital of these 

 selected quotations, is the same as if all the replies to the ques- 

 tion, the cultural versus immediate efficiency, were "given in toto. 



Evidently the majority of each of the two groups of educators 

 believe that the function of the elementary school, even in such 

 subjects as manual training, domestic science, or more strictly 

 vocational subjects is not to prepare the pupil for the trade in 

 the narrow or artisan sense, but for the larger outlook in the 

 industrial world. Stated differently, the purpose of the elemen- 

 tary school is to permit the pupil to discover his aptitudes, to 

 develop his intellect, to foster his aesthetic and ethical nature, 

 and also, otherwise it would not be vocational at all, to give an 

 appreciation of the industrial activities of the community; in 

 short, the function is psychological and social, and not voca- 

 tional in the narrow sense. Since these conclusions are derived 

 from a study of the aims of vocational subjects in the grades, 

 there should be no question as to the meaning of the economic 

 or vocational aim, in such a subject, as Nature-Study. 



As an index to the extent to which the vocational idea has 

 been introduced into Nature-Study in the elementary schools 

 of Wisconsin, the response to the question, "In what particular 

 subjects in the grades, other than prevocational subjects do you 

 make special effort to emphasize the vocational aspect?" may be 

 noted: 17 reports mention arithmetic, 15 geography, 9 language, 

 4 civics, 3 agriculture, 3 reading, 2 spelling, 1 history, and 1 

 Nature-Study. 



Although the vocational idea has hardly gotten into Nature- 

 Study in the elementary schools of this state, the superintend- 

 ents and principals are not averse to the notion. Of 45 an- 

 swers to the questions of objections to giving Nature-Study a 

 vocational trend only 4 are negative, while 41 are positive, in 



