254 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [12:6-Sept., 1916 



answer was, "Yes, when done as club work." It seems as though 

 there is danger of over emphasizing the necessity of a club. Graft- 

 ing apple trees is more important than a Providence County Boys' 

 Club for Grafting Apple Trees. 



The Value of Nature -study. — I do not know a superintendent of 

 schools in Rhode Island who does not think that Nature-study is 

 of great value although they have not all adjusted their courses 

 to the needs of such a training. 



We are living in the midst of an educational upheaval. If we 

 accept the public education as a system which prepares for daily 

 living we must stop trying to produce "scholars (?)" and consider 

 what the child needs. In the Journal of Educational Psychology, 

 September, 191 5, is an article on the "Fundamentals in Educa- 

 tion." It says, "Is Arithmetic fundamental? Assuredly not! 

 Even a casual inquiry will show that in all lines of activity the need 

 for Arithmetic is vanishingly small. Is Handwriting fundamen- 

 tal? The business man or business woman scarcely use the pen. 

 Is Spelling fundamental ? Recent studies have shown that ninety 

 per cent of all the words that are ordinarily used in writing are 

 found in a list of 1,000 w^ords. Of these not over 200 words would 

 give trouble. Is Grammar fundamental? All experiments agree 

 that its contribution to efficiency in the use of language is negli- 

 gible." 



Nature produces abundantly. It takes 1,000 seeds to produce 

 a maple tree ; a million eggs for one oyster. What a great waste 

 in life. Most of the teaching of arithmetic, spelling, grammar, and 

 penmanship in the school are like the machinery of nature. The 

 amount of knowledge that the child gets is astonishingly small. 

 The old graduation motto that "Knowledge is Power" may be a 

 basic but it is not the chief function of education. There is a vast 

 difference between the knowledge of swimming and the ability to 

 swim. The laboratory, the sewing room, the school kitchen, and 

 the manual arts shop create this chief function which is not know- 

 ledge but the power to do. Why over emphasize the acquiring of 

 second-hand information when in life we meet our problems face 

 to face? 



There is an old saying that "He who knows not that he knows 

 not is a fool, shun him." I have vanishing faith in this quotation. 

 The psychology teacher recently showed a class a lawn scene, — 

 three children in a hammock and a hedge in the background. The 



