THE LIMITATIONS OF NATURE STUDY. 135 



pendulum once started is apt to swing to the opposite 

 extreme. Something of this has been seen in science 

 work in higher institutions. From the old classical 

 extreme, when a liberal education did not include any 

 physical science, but was all language, mathematics, and 

 history, the pendulum swung to the opposite extreme. 

 Often a purely scientific education, without any attention 

 to the humanities, has been regarded as the best. To- 

 day many of our universities and colleges recognize that 

 a broad, liberal education requires a due proportion of 

 science and the humanities. The conviction is growing 

 that an education purely scientific may be even more 

 narrow than one purely classical. 



Nature study is not all-sufficient. It has its limita- 

 tions. Nature study, or science, does not contain within 

 itself the possibility of a complete or well-rounded ele- 

 mentary education. Harm may be done to the cause 

 of education, and the progress of nature study may be 

 retarded, by emphasizing it too strongly at the expense 

 of other studies equally important. 



As has already been said, the child's environment 

 may be considered as threefold, nature, man, and God. 

 With his spiritual environment, God, he is brought into 

 relation, at least in his formal education, only through 

 his relations to nature and man. If it is true, as has 

 been asserted in the preceding chapter, that the highest 

 aim of education is to perfect the relation between the 

 child and his environment, then the immediate object 

 of formal education is to bring the child into right 



