46 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [14:2— Feb., 1918 



them all. It is not true that a subject is useful in education in 

 proportion as it can be applied in the affairs of life. It is not true 

 that any subject is even relatively useless because it cannot be 

 "applied." 



Man is as much a part of nature as is a pigeon or a trillium. Did 

 not Huxley write on man's place in nature? It is an incomplete 

 nature-study that eliminates man from its range. What we now 

 need above all else in nature-study is a good procedure on the 

 observation of human beings. 



If man is part in nature, if he has had a progressive evolution, 

 then his habits and also his institutions are but parts of his natural 

 history. Tradition itself is a phase of the natural history of the 

 race, and becomes an essential part in any worth-while study 

 of the race. These traditions express themselves as well in what 

 we call science as in what we call classics. They are expressions of 

 our development within our environment and in contact with our 

 fellows. Against all this background, the discussion of the relative 

 importance of the humanities and the sciences seems trivial and 

 empty. These historic separations should now be forgotten, as 

 against the common interests of mankind. 



Always have I tried to present to you the wholeness of nature- 

 study. From the first I have stood against the exclusive observa- 

 tion and study of the objects counted as "practical." This is not 

 because I am opposed to the practical and the applied in education, 

 but because such narrowing of the subject presents a wrong and 

 restricted view of nature. In whatever the child takes up, I have 

 wanted it to see the animal or the plant or the situation as a whole, 

 and as part of its environment, and not merely as yielding certain 

 products or benefits. 



The interest in itself and its right to live, — this is the reason for 

 the study of any living object, whether a frog, a cabbage, a horse, 

 or a human being. 



So should I be careful that nature-study does not degenerate 

 into a study of attributes. In at least one State a law compels 

 instruction in the elementary grades "in .the humane treatment of 

 animals and birds." The humane interest in "animals and birds" 

 results naturally from a knowledge of them. The teaching of 

 humane natural-history subjects as a detached and literary exercise 

 is both weak education and insufficient morals. It is like teaching 

 the odor of the rose. 



