schmucker] SCIEXCE AND NATURE-STUDY 49 



our teaching with reference to that subject, we are teaching science. 

 But when we teach about these things with our thought chiefly 

 upon the child, his capacities, the nature of his mind, the nature 

 of his interests, then we are teaching nature-study. 



When the great wave of modern biology swept over England, 

 stimulated by Darwin's "Origin of Species," Professor Huxley 

 determined that the elementary schools must gain the advantage 

 of this new teaching, and therefore he made or caused to be made a 

 series of science primers. The completeness with which they have 

 dropped out of the field, their constant presence in second hand 

 book stores, and entire absence from the stores that sell new 

 books, tells the tale of a scientist of earnestness and power who 

 mistook his field when he tried to do this. He had the idea that 

 elementary science meant the general principles of a science in 

 simple words. He forgot that after all, it is not the words that are 

 hard to understand in a science, it is the ideas. Mastery of terms 

 is comparatively a simple matter, and requires no great brains, but 

 the mastery of fundamental principles is a vastly different thing. 

 Any immature mind studying and handling fundamental principles 

 may say them quite as roundly as the scientist, but it is a quality he 

 shares with the victrola record. He can say back things that have 

 been said to him. 



Agassiz on this side of the ocean, was filled with the same noble 

 design, and started a series of little guides to science teaching. 

 These were better than Huxley's primers. A few of the numbers 

 were rather good for their purpose. But when Alpheus Hyatt 

 wrote his little book in this series, which he characteristically called 

 "Insecta," he put together the most complete cemetery of dry 

 bones of knowledge it has ever been my misfortune to look into. 



The truth of the matter is that if we are to teach nature-study 

 where it is commonly taught, that is, in the first four grades of the 

 school life, where we are compelled to choose between a good 

 teacher of children, and a good scientist, we can trust more securely 

 the teacher than the scientist. Her good sense will guide her into 

 the selection of the facts in nature around about her, better than 

 his good sense will guide him in an understanding of the mind 

 which is to take his work. Of course, the ideal condition is gained 

 when we can have a teacher who is both the skilled handler of 

 young children, and the trained scientist, but such a combination 

 is exceedingly rare. I think I only know of two people who really 



