CHAPTER VI. 



NATURE-STUDY AND MORALS. 



The questions which relate to material and method in nature- 

 study are beginning to be treated with great intelHgence and skill. 

 It is a serious mistake to suppose, however, that when all such 

 problems are solved we shall find the subject on its final and highest 

 educational footing. The teacher until now has been concerned 

 chiefly with matters of expediency and of lesser importance. He 

 has but barely reached the point where a discussion of the funda- 

 mental question is possible. I refer to its place in the training 

 for moral character. In spite of the tremendous impetus from 

 the practical side which nature-study has received within the past 

 decade, its position in the schools is still tentative, and its final 

 mission in education is still problematical. It might be said, better, 

 that its position is tentative because its mission is problematical. 

 In these days there is a decided tendency to measure the value 

 of any subject by the direct contribution which it is able to make 

 to the development of character. In answer to this question, 

 " What can nature-study do to make the pupil inore upright, 

 and more moral generally?" the teachers have not been specific; 

 they have been hesitating, equivocal, indirect, and quite unsatis- 

 factory. As compared with the teachers of the so-called humani- 

 ties, in their answer to this great question which is the final one in 

 education, the teachers of nature-study have not appeared to the 

 best advantage. The former are always ready to point out that, 

 since the materials for their subjects are drawn directly from the 

 interrelations of men, the results of such teaching will therefore 

 bear directly upon those mutual relations. The claim is commonly 

 made that it is only through this direct study of human relations 

 that moral standards become known, established, and enforced. 

 There is scarcely any dealing between man and man that cannot 

 be seized upon by the shrewd teacher of the humanities as proper 

 material from which to derive a legitimate lesson that will tend to 

 elevate and more clearly define the moral status of the human being. 

 But when the teacher of nature-study is called upon to show an 



73 



