i8o The Nature-Study Idea 



better and to understand it. I should establish 

 the child in his own life and anchor the school 

 to the actual necessities of the community. 

 From this starting point, I go backward or 

 forward as the necessities of the case seem to 

 demand, without any particular reference to the 

 abstract psychology of the process. The child 

 is not conscious of his place in the history of 

 the race until he is told of it; and when he is 

 told of it, it is a bit of extraneous and exotic 

 information, the same as any other extrinsic 

 information is. Of course, the child can be 

 greatly interested in this fact, as he can be in 

 any other fact or set of facts under the inspira- 

 tion of a first-class teacher; but this of itself 

 does not appeal to me as being sufficient reason 

 for instituting a method. From the teacher's 

 side, I doubt whether it is good practice to use 

 the child as a means of working out an 

 hypothesis. It is natural that every specialist 

 should consider his subject to be the center of 

 the circle. 



I should begin with the common and apparent 

 facts of our existence and conditions, or with the 



