120 NATURE STUDY. 



his surroundings, or to adapt the child to his environ- 

 ment. 



The environment of the child may be considered as 

 threefold, his physical environment, or nature ; his in- 

 tellectual environment, or man as an intellectual being ; 

 and his spiritual environment, or God. This division may 

 be somewhat artificial, but it is very convenient. That 

 education is incomplete which does not adapt the child 

 to this threefold environment, nature, man, God. 



A '':. 



The question naturally arises, "What is meant by 

 adaptation to environment ? " In much of the work of 

 the past we have assumed, or have seemed to assume, 

 that adaptation to environment means learning about 

 our environment, so that we can control it, or make it 

 minister to our material needs or desires. 



Too often we have considered almost entirely our 

 material needs, and have looked on nature, man, and 

 God as means for supplying these needs. This has 

 been most apparent, perhaps, in our attitude toward 

 nature. Nature has been considered almost entirely as 

 a storehouse of purely material riches. Our natural 

 resources have been material resources. Forests have 

 been lumber and little more except to the few, "the 

 children, women, and poets " as some one has grouped 

 those who see in forests more than lumber. The birds 

 have been the farmer's bane or the farmer's friends 

 according to the state of knowledge, but not often, ex- 

 cept to the group before named, the sweetest singers 

 ever heard, sources of joy and inspiration. The flowers 



