INTRODUCTION 1 1 



There is no reason to fear that this will rob anyone of his enjoy- 

 ment of nature, or that it will reduce it at one stroke to the level 

 of the prosaic. Truth in science is always more splendid than 

 fiction, and the pictures developed by the imagination out of real 

 conditions always eclipse those that are conjured up by flights 

 of fancy. 



II. THE UNITY OF NATURE-STUDY AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



In a general survey of the place and functions of nature-study 

 it is quite important that its relation to the more technical branches 

 of natural science should be duly considered. For the purpose of 

 properly defining a subject it may be necessary to set it apart in a 

 state of isolation and to place the emphasis upon its differences ; 

 but for finding the full measure of its usefulness it is of far greater 

 importance to discover its true relations. 



W'hat seems to be an almost inherent tendency of the human 

 being to worship the abstruse, the mystical, and the learned has 

 never been more amusingly exemplified than in the disposition of 

 many of those who call themselves scientists to disown nature-study 

 and to deny that it bears any particularly useful relation to their 

 own special subjects. This refusal to recognize nature-study as 

 a part of science, and the denial that its methods are distinctly 

 scientific, have done much to discredit the subject in the eyes of 

 teachers and pupils and the public at large. 



The objections as urged may have been valid, in some degree, 

 against the crude and rudimentary methods employed in the begin- 

 ning ; these nature-study itself disowns. But they cannot be suc- 

 cessfully maintained against the study when it is properly conducted. 

 That nature-study is the forerunner, the direct progenitor, of natural 

 science is a perfectly obvious and most helpful truth to anyone 

 who Avill fairly consider the matter and the methods of both. 



Nature-study is precisely what it proclaims itself to be — the 

 study of nature. Its subject-matter lies in the kingdoms of earth, 

 air, sky, and water ; it embraces a search for knowledge of all 

 phenomena and of the laws by which these are associated. Natural 

 science finds all of its subject-matter in the same fields, and it pur- 

 sues its course toward the same end. 



In nature-study everything depends primarily upon the integrity 

 and the proper use of the senses. Knowledge becomes clear and 



