THE SCOPE OF NATURE-STUDY 29 



of the country. First, the old overshot wheel, cumbersome and 

 wasteful of water, then the turbine, and finally the steam-engine 

 supplanting both — each serving its day and purpose ; each repre- 

 sents a given horizon of ability that man has reached in availing 

 himself of the natural features of his environment. 



The location of the timber reserves, of the quarries, and of the 

 mines bears a direct relation to the value of the soil for the purpose ot 

 cultivation, and to the natural transportation facilities. The houses, 

 too, show an interesting evolution. The earlier ones were of wood — 

 log cabins — or sod dugouts. These are often followed with stone 

 buildings, when quarries of good building-stone are a part of the 

 country's features. These are still further succeeded by either 

 wooden ones of finer worked lumber, or by cut stone, or it may be 

 by imported brick and tile. This study tends to bring out the fact 

 that education and training do not, as often supposed, enable man 

 to live at variance with nature, or in a measure independent, or even 

 at war v/ith her. They simply show how man learns to avail him- 

 self more widely of the benefits that nature is ready to bestow 

 upon those who are willing to consider themselves a part of the 

 great whole. This is the fundamental motive for nature-study. It 

 can be brought to the experience of children of the earliest teach- 

 able age; and, once fixed, no artificial stimulus to observation will 

 ever after be needed. The study of nature then becomes for the 

 pupil a personal matter. Its problems are personal ones that make 

 their appeal directly to him. There is an abysmal difference 

 between learning about nature and learning from nature. Both 

 methods of study may have outwardly the true scientific form ; but 

 it is the latter only that is really educative. In the former process 

 the student finds her inert, spiritless, and dumb. In the latter she 

 becomes active and eloquent, and almost conscious in her meeting 

 at every point the gradually awakening needs of man. 



III. THE FARM. 



As a smaller or minor unit in the general landscape the farm 

 may be considered as practically a natural division. When the topog- 

 raphy varies at all, the farm boundaries will usually follow certain 

 natural lines. For example, it is difficult for a man to farm if his 

 land lies on opposite sides of a deep ravine or sharply divided ridge. 

 The effort is made, then, in buying and selling, to recognize the 



