14 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 



the small quantities, enormously increases the percentage of error. 

 True nature-study, therefore, is natural science, and its methods are 

 strictly scientific. 



It is not here sought to establish merely an identity of terms. 

 Failure to recognize the true relation of the different parts of the 

 subject has helped to emphasize the break that is already too pro- 

 nounced between the elementary and the higher schools. Believing 

 that there is some radical difference, the high-school teachers, as a 

 rule, make but little effort to prepare a course of study that substan- 

 tially continues the work of nature-study. The consequent abrupt 

 change of method and material simply adds to the loss that the pupil 

 suffers in other directions in this transition stage. The study of 

 nature is the same, regardless of the age of the student. It will 

 be a great step in advance when all teachers recognize this, and 

 so plan the course of study that the pupil will not find it necessary 

 to unlearn, ignore, or forget what he has learned in earlier stages. 

 Every step taken should be a substantial preparation for the next 

 throughout the course from the kindergarten to the university. 

 This plan would also immensely strengthen the elementary teachers, 

 and give stability, tone, and dignity to the work that it has seldom 

 yet assumed. No teacher can put the best into his work when he 

 feels that he is engaged simply in "busy work," which must serve 

 as entertainment, at least, for the moment. It is not so in other 

 subjects, and this fact contributes not a little to the strength of the 

 position they hold in the curriculum. Every scrap of history, for 

 example, that the pupil learns anywhere in his course is accounted 

 for as he passes from grade to grade and from the grades to the 

 high school. But not so with science ; some misguided high-school, 

 and even college, teachers have gone so far as to say that they would 

 prefer to have their pupils come to them with no elementary work 

 — a most preposterous position to assume. When the teachers 

 from lowest to highest feel that all the good work they do will 

 receive due recognition ; when each understands that the true ele- 

 mentary work is as essential and fundamental as the more refined 

 which is done farther along, then for the first time shall we be in 

 the proper attitude of mind to develop a science course that will at 

 once add strength to the curriculum and be a valuable contribution 

 as a means to the development of the pupil. 



