WHAT IS NATURE STUDY? 93 



3d. Classified, considered in its relations, and ar- 

 ranged and grouped (by the child, not merely by teacher 

 or book) in accordance with the relations and the dif- 

 ferences and similarities the child has discovered. 



If this definition is correct, we can test the work 

 being done under the name of elementary science by 

 seeing how far it meets the requirements of the defi- 

 nition. Is it " elementary knowledge classified " ? 



We shall find in our schools and homes, or clamoring 

 for admission, three general classes or kinds of science 

 work, or so-called science, which do not meet these con- 

 ditions. 



Our university or college or high-school friend, in- 

 terested in education, enthusiastic in his specialty, 

 would have us introduce, or has already introduced, 

 into our schools such work as he carries on with his 

 students, with very little modification or adaptation to 

 children. The botanist would have our little folks 

 begin with the plant cell as the unit of plant life and 

 structure, or with the lower forms of plants, such as 

 pond scum, and work up step by step to the complex 

 organism which the child calls a bean plant. This 

 seems to the botanist the simplest, easiest, and only 

 logical method of procedure. The mineralogist would 

 have the children begin with the chemical elements of 

 which minerals are composed, and build up the min- 

 erals and rocks, because to him a mineral means noth- 

 ing unless he knows its components. Both overlook 

 the fact that what is logical and simple for them may 

 be illogical and incomprehensible to the 'child, and 



