244 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



Discussion of different breeds of cattle has brought a review of 

 the lessons earlier in the year on the breeds of dogs and of pigeons. 

 Reversion to type and ancestral patterns are problems that can 

 be made of great interest to the grammar school child. 



There has been much stimulus not only to visit dairies but to 

 revisit the zoos and to see the relatives of the cow. Some 

 rooms are keeping Nature Study Honor-rolls with records of child- 

 ren who have watched animals chewing their cuds, scoring points 

 for the camel and the giraffe in proportion to the unfamiliarity 

 of the animal. The children have found new things to look for. 

 They have discovered that Nature Study in the words of Liberty 

 Hyde Bailey is "Seeing what one looks at and drawing correct 

 conclusions from what one sees." 



Field exciirsions give laboratory experience of the highest type. 

 Hoofs and horns and teeth take on new meaning after seeing 

 horses and cows and camels and studying them first hand. Big 

 principles of evolution, of animal breeding, of zoological classi- 

 fication, of the interrelations of the plant and animal world have 

 been brought within the horizon of every child. It is such neighbor- 

 hood and more distant field excursions which link Nature Study 

 with the true scientific spirit of the high school and the university. 



The County and City School Libraries for Visual Education 

 have cooperated in supplying slides. These have illustrated 

 butter and cheese making, breeds of cattle and tanning leather. 

 The teachers as well as the children have expressed the greatest 

 enthusiasm over these illustrated talks. 



The child is not asked to memorize. He is taught that it is 

 his ability to observe and to draw correct conclusions which 

 counts. The child who has stroked a beautiful Jersey cow and 

 felt her soft coat will never answer merely by rote that "the cow 

 is a fur-bearing animal like ourselves." The best education is 

 that which comes from intimate contact with real things as they 

 appeal not only to the eye but also to the hand and the ear. 



The individual who hsis stalked a timid cow in a corral and made 

 friends with her has a source of intellectual pleasure and interest 

 not to be found in books alone. 



