56 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [17:2— Feb., 1921 



elementary school. At the National Educational Association in 

 1893 Superintendent Albert Marble of Worcester, Mass., in dis- 

 cussing the topic, "What should be added to the course of study in 

 the elementary school," said, "There are various branches that 

 should be added but should not displace the essentials already 

 named — that is, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, etc. — 

 These are embraced under the general term nature-study, physics, 

 or forces. They should be taught objectively from the overflowing 

 abundance of the teacher's knowledge. In this way they may 

 supplement and vivify the essential branches." 



In 1894 Charles B. Scott in the department of the elementary 

 school in the N. E. A. makes an appeal for the laboratory method in 

 the grades and states that the new subject, nature-study, furnishes 

 the best basis for this kind of teaching. 



In 1895 Prof. Jackman states that in many schools nature-study 

 holds at least a tentative place in the cotirse of study for primary 

 and grammar grades. 



During the next five or six years a wave of enthusiasm for the 

 subject spread over the entire country. Superintendents and 

 principals in both city and village schools were eager to give it a 

 trial. The teachers, however, as a rule were not so ardent. The 

 large majority of them had scarcely heard of the subject they were 

 asked to teach. Only a few of them had caught a vision of the 

 possibilities that it held for the education of children. They were 

 therefore unable to handle it with any degree of satisfaction either 

 to themselves or their patrons. They tried to do something but in 

 many cases what they did was far from nature-study. Those that 

 had had training in zoology and botany taught these subjects in 

 diluted form. Insects, crayfish and other animals were dissected 

 and minute details of structure studied. Meaningless collections 

 were made. I remember a teacher of the third grade showed me 

 with great pride a collection of butterflies that one of the children 

 had made. The children of her room had been carrying on a con- 

 test to see who could catch the most butterflies. The collection 

 that the teacher showed me belonged to the winner in the contest. 

 I remember he had as many as five or six individuals of the same 

 species. There had been no study of the interesting insects. It 

 was simply a slaughter of the innocents due to misdirected energy. 

 The worst example of the collection craze of the time came to my 

 knowledge a few years later. A country teacher in her zeal to do 



