Shaw] PROGRESS IN NATURE-STUDY MATERIALS 65 



these two or three illustrations are rather typical of the change in 

 the materials provided yesterday and today in nature-study. 



This does not mean that there was not much excellent and inspi- 

 rational work done yesterday, nor does it mean that some teachers 

 were not giving exactly the same practical work that is being given 

 today, but on the whole the work of yesterday was far less well 

 thought out, and far less well applied to the everyday life of the 

 child. I remember a very wonderful piece of work carried on in a 

 rural community about thirteen years ago. Some of you here know 

 Miss Faddis and her work. We happened to be teaching nature- 

 study together in the same New York State Normal School. One 

 of the grades Miss Faddis was working with, was the fifth grade. 

 They were doing some spring work in nature-study and instead of 

 doing a few exercises in the classroom on birds and letting it go at 

 that, Miss Faddis inspired those children to collect birds' nests of 

 different types, nests that were deserted and no longer used. Just 

 this last winter I happened to see in New York one of the boys who 

 was in that class and he said, *'I shall never forget that work; it 

 will always live with me. We fellows scoured the countryside for 

 miles around to get the specimens." Such work as that is of no 

 epoch and of no period. Miss Faddis would have taught that kind 

 of work twenty years ago, ten years ago, or now. Any person who 

 has common sense must know that nature-study is not a matter of 

 classroom exercises, of perfunctory work, of sentimental slush, but 

 it is a part of one's daily life, and should be inspiring, thought- 

 evoking, and having to do with the real life of all of us, just as the 

 birds, trips to the museums, planting of real gardens on top of a 

 roof, are all things which do not today belong in the life of any 

 person, any group, any class, but in the life of all people. So, for 

 the first point which I have so sketchily covered, the thought in my 

 own mind is that materials chosen for nature-study work today 

 seem for the most part to be those which have more to do with 

 definite living, and are far better arranged ; that we are not taking 

 any old material because it happens to be convenient, but that we 

 are reaching out, and making the right materials serve the right 

 purpose, choosing real centers of interest, working from them and 

 making everyday applications to our everyday lives. 



In my second point, the use of these materials, we have advanced 

 as well as in the first point. Very, very few of us who are working 

 in this line are willing to put in energy upon materials which are not 

 going to measure up to some definite results. A new course of 



