Nature-Study in Rhode Island* 



William Gould Vinal 

 The Rhode Island Normal School. 



What is Nature-Study? In defining Nature-Study I can do no 

 better than to quote Professor Hodge, that "Nature-Study is 

 learning those things in nature that are best worth knowing to the 

 end of doing those things that make life most worth the living." 



There are three large phases in Nature-Study, — the plant-ani- 

 mal, the physics-chemistry, and the gardening phase. The plant- 

 animal phase comes in the first six grades and I would call it Com- 

 munity Nature-Study in order to give the community idea proper 

 emphasis. School Gardening should come in the fifth and sixth 

 grades and Home Gardening in the seventh. I should call this 

 study Home Science in the seventh grade and in the eighth grade 

 let it broaden into Civic Science. 



School gardening is one form of practical Nature-Study. The 

 usual method in School Gardening has been the plain fact-methbd. 

 Two inches deep ; three inches apart in a row ; and rows three feet 

 apart is not especially interesting but the "Why" of each step in 

 gardening is the Nature-Study method. There is no fun in "hill- 

 ing up" potatoes. If the farmer boy had asked why should pota- 

 toes be "hilled up" he might have discovered that it was simply 

 an inherited custom and that the hill drained the water away from 

 the plant and exposed more surface for evaporation. The flat 

 method is, therefore, better in dry soil. If farm life had been made 

 more interesting there would not have been such a pronounced 

 exodus from the farm. 



Nature-Study is usually limited to the plants and animals and 

 Elementary Science is usually limited to Physics and Chemistry. 

 They are both scientific and they are both nature-study. The 

 difference is in the emphasis. In Nature-study emphasis is placed 

 on the appreciative side whereas in Elementary Science the sub- 

 ject is placed first. 



Club work is a means of organization. At the Nature-study 

 exhibit which was held last October a superintendent of schools 

 stood looking at some young apple trees which had been grafted. 

 The remark was ventured that it was "practical work." His 



*A lecture given in the Extension Course of the Rhode Island Normal 

 School, February 12, 1916. 



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