136 NATURE STUDY. 



relations with nature and man. Behind, beyond, above 

 this is the perfecting of the relations between the child 

 and God. 



We may group all formal education about the two 

 centres, nature and man. The child must study and 

 be brought into better relations with both nature and 

 man ; if he is not, his adaptation to his environment 

 is to that extent incomplete or imperfect. 



If all his education consists in the study of man, 

 his language, literature, history, geography, and methods 

 of calculating and reasoning, the education is narrow. 

 It does not fit the child to understand, appreciate, or 

 properly make use of or control, the physical world in 

 which he lives. He is adapted to but part of his envi- 

 ronment, and to that extent is only partly educated. 



If the education of the child is limited to the study 

 of his physical environment, nature study, or science, 

 and the work growing out of this study, his preparation 

 for life may be even more defective. If he has not 

 studied man, his history, his literature and art, that is, 

 the use man has made of his physical surroundings, 

 the beauty man has "half created, half perceived," 

 in and from his environment, if he knows nothing of 

 man's conquest of nature, of man's social and political 

 relations, and has learned nothing from the past experi- 

 ences of man, then he cannot be adapted to his human 

 environment, and is not well equipped for life with his 

 fellow-men. 



In so far as man neglects the sympathetic, reverent 

 study of nature, his understanding of its Author will 



