CHAPTER IV. 

 NATURE-STUDY AND EXPRESSION. 



In nature-study it is indispensable that adequate and intelligible 

 records, corresponding to the different modes of observation, shall 

 be carefully made and preserved. Few people seem to appreciate 

 sufficiently the importance of appropriate and adequate expression. 

 Teachers are apt to be content with having the pupils see, and then 

 " tell what they see " in oral language, forgetting that the most 

 and the best that they have to tell cannot be expressed in that way. 

 The fear that the technical side of the various modes of expression 

 cannot be mastered in the earlier grades adds materially to the 

 difficulty. The fact is, however, that the mere technical or formal 

 side of a subject is always the easiest part of the subject to learn. 



Whatever may be the mode employed it is of the greatest 

 importance that the expression shall be preserved carefully in the 

 form of a record of the work done. Such a record is a powerful 

 and a perfectly legitimate stimulus to further study and effort, and 

 at the same time stands as a coherent history of what has been 

 accomplished. In this way, also, a just basis is established for the 

 judgment of teacher, parent, and pupil as to the merits of the work. 



I. COLOR. 



Among the records that can be made by pupils of all grades 

 there is no one capable of a wider and more varied application than 

 that of color. Of the mediums that may be employed, for simpli- 

 city and effectiveness water-colors are superior to others. With 

 children and with all beginners this record has the highest value : 

 first, because with children, particularly, nature exists as a thing 

 of color, and it is through color that it makes its earliest appeal ; 

 second, because the simplicity of the materials used — water-colors 

 — enables the children to express more fully and more graphically, 

 by this means than by any other, what they see. 



Fig. I shows one month's record in a pictorial history of the year 

 in color. In the Chicago Normal and Practice School this plan 

 was followed with various modifications for several years. Above 



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