CHAPTER 11. 

 THE SCOPE OF NATURE-STUDY. 



I. FIELD-WORK. 



With that conception of nature-study which has already been 

 set forth it follows that the children must lay the foundation for 

 their knowledge by direct contact with nature under normal condi- 

 tions. This end is to be attained by a variety of investigations, 

 which for convenience may be classed under the head of field-work. 

 It is not intended, here, to limit this to the mere collecting tours, but 

 rather to expand the meaning so that it may include all the great 

 aspects of life outside the schoolroom which may be conveniently 

 studied. Field-work of this kind is usually done so irregularly, and 

 with such a lack of well-conceived plan on the part of the teacher, that 

 it often falls quite short of having its full educative value. The 

 following principles, in accord with which outdoor work may be 

 conducted, are offered as the basis of a plan that may be generally 

 applied to the different aspects of field-work. 



I. Each study should begin with a comprehensive survey of the 

 landscape as a zvhole. — In thus treating the landscape, it should 

 not be regarded as a great composite of confused facts, but as an 

 organism of tremendous strength, having the relations of its parts 

 balanced with the greatest delicacy. 



Evidence of its strength, for example, may be witnessed in any 

 garden or cultivated field. In the area of cultivation the foster-plant 

 is brought into competition with wild ones that, in their own way, 

 have made themselves possessors of the ground. It may be assumed 

 that the conditions are generally favorable for the cultivated plant, 

 or man would not have selected it for this particular spot. In 

 addition to this, in most cases it requires the vigorous use of the 

 best implements that the wit of man has yet devised to enable the 

 plant to maintain itself against the onslaughts of the aborigines of 

 the soil. There is not a cultivated plant in existence that would 

 dare match itself, single-handed, in a race against the common 

 garden purslain or pigweed on its own ground. As soon as a child 



