190 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [12:5— May, 1916 



organization of courses in nature-study. It is probably fortunate 

 that there have been and will yet be many rather restricted 

 attempts to organize courses of study, since through this kind 

 of experimentation much has been learned regarding the material 

 and the plans of procedure which are or are not appropriate for use 

 in effective instruction in the schools. 



We are not without school people who believe that nature-study 

 work should proceed in an unorganized way as heretofore, and that 

 each school should develop its own plans. I may cite one large 

 school system with a score or more of different schools and a total of 

 approximately i o,ooo pupils in which there is a definitely organized 

 course of study in each subject of instruction except nature-study. 

 When a new teacher comes into this school system she is handed 

 an outline of the work which her class is expected to cover in each 

 subject, except nature-study. A definite place on her daily 

 program is given to nature-study, and she is told that she is to 

 plan her own work for that subject. One teacher of my ac- 

 quaintance who asked the supervising officer in this school how 

 she would make sure to use the work of preceding grades and at 

 the same time not duplicate effort was told that in nature-study 

 hurtful duplication is not likely, and that there is no need of 

 definite relation of one year's work to that of another year. There 

 can be no doubt that the multiplicity of nature's materials is 

 such, and the impossibility of exhausting a topic in nature is 

 such, that a thoroughly interested and keen teacher may do some 

 good work in such a system as that mentioned above. Could 

 such a statement possibly hold true for other subjects of the 

 curriculum in elementary schools ? Suppose in arithmetic, history, 

 language, etc., the teacher's directions are like those given for 

 work in nature-study. We should have a condition of chaos, 

 such as we often now have in work attempted in nature-study. 



It may appear to some persons that subjects other than nature- 

 study have become so completely organized that they are formal 

 and unyielding to the vital needs of education in any given school, 

 and there can be no doubt that such conditions sometimes exist. 

 Nature-study must retain its vitality at all costs for if it loses 

 vitality it loses its excuse for existence as a subject of instruction. 

 In this respect nature-study does not differ from other subjects. 

 Neither does it differ from other subjects in the necessity of hav- 

 ing a clearly outlined plan of procedure. It needs continuity 



