76 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



the difficult task of the school-teacher is often made harder rather 

 than easier by well-meant but officious and ignorant outside 

 advice. What to teach and how to teach it are matters primarily 

 for professional educators to deal with. Nevertheless, perhaps 

 the nature-study teachers will permit me, as one deeply interestd 

 in their task to offer a modest thought or two, for their consider- 

 ation. 



It is an old saying that sometimes one fails to see the woods 

 for the trees; To this saying I would at the moment give a 

 two-fold application. First, tree-study is not forest-study. 

 Secondly, if in speaking of forest-study we stress too heavily the 

 second element in the compound word, we m.ay fail to give the 

 child the best part of his heritage. 



Tree-study is not forest-study because the life of the forest is as dif- 

 ferent a thing from the life of individual trees as the history of a city 

 is from the sum of the biographies of its individual citizens. The 

 scientist sees in it a wonderful living example of biological proc- 

 esses. A silent but deadly struggle among individuals and 

 species for a place in the sun — for growing-room and light — is 

 always on, and its outcome depends on fitness to survive; while 

 on the other hand, along with this lethal combat for individual 

 survival a definite association of plant and animal life exists, 

 modifying the environment for each sharer in the complex life 

 of the forest as a whole. The forester sees presented to him the 

 same association, but as plastic material, moldable to his own 

 ends through the utilization of nature's forces and laws to produce 

 what man wills. 



And what does the nature-study teacher see? That depends. 

 Perhaps plants, great and small, to be labeled with a name; 

 perhaps life processes ; perhaps flowers and birds and little running 

 creatures, or nuts and berries and bright-hued autumn leaves, 

 to gladden and interest an hour's excursion while sharpening the 

 powers of observation; perhaps raw material to be converted 

 through various industries into useful products. All these are good 

 things to see, and helpful to the child to have shown him. 

 But to my mind, the teacher will do well to remember 

 also that too earnest a desire to have the child study nature may 

 lead astray from the path to the child's heritage. 



