Inquiries and Answers 177 



but in the end everything is relative. If our 

 first object is to develop the child and to 

 train his capacities and sympathies, then it may 

 not be necessary at all to begin with the under- 

 lying or internal reasons of things. These rea- 

 sons will come out as the child grows and as his 

 mind is able to grasp them. 



I hope that we are rapidly passing through 

 the epoch of mere object-teaching. It has very 

 narrow limitations as ordinarily taught, because 

 it has had no vital relation to the child or to 

 the life that he is to lead. Merely to study an 

 object may or may not be of value in the train- 

 ing of the child. If that object has some rela- 

 tion to the life that the child is living so that 

 it will be meaningful to him, it ought to have 

 direct value in interesting him and in being 

 made a means of drawing him out into larger 

 growth. 



From these remarks it will be seen that we 

 need not "replace" some of the "fundamental 

 work," as you phrase it, by nature-study. I 

 would have all work, fundamental and otherwise 

 (including "the simple chemical and physical 



