io The Nature-Study Idea 



needs of the passing generations of men. We 

 now feel that speech-education is not a primary 

 educational process, but that real education 

 should grow out of or result from the common 

 activities of the child. Some day we shall set 

 all our children at work when they go to school 

 and make them to be effective men and women 

 in the common work of men and women. 



After all these years of nature-study enter- 

 prise, it is naturally assumed by many persons 

 that we ought to be able to give statistics of the 

 number of pupils who are enrolled in the sub- 

 ject, the number of teachers that are teaching it, 

 the number of books that have been read, and 

 other exact figures. This supposition misses 

 the very purpose of the nature-study movement, 

 which is to set pupils at work informally and 

 personally with the objects, the affairs and phe- 

 nomena with which they are in daily contact. 

 There are very many teachers and very many 

 schools, and very many pupils, who have a new 

 outlook on life as the result of nature-study 

 work; but if I could give a statistical measure of 

 the nature-study movement, I should consider 



