138 NATURE STUDY. 



A complete education, then, even in the elementary 

 school, must provide for the study of these two parts of 

 the child's environment. The work of the school must 

 be grouped about the two centres, nature and man. 



How can or should this be done ? It is much easier 

 to gather school-work about one centre, man, as has 

 been largely done in the past. Are these two centres 

 equally important, should they be made equally promi- 

 nent, throughout the school-life of the child ? A little 

 study of the child and his relations to nature and man 

 will help in answering these questions. 



With nature, his physical environment, the child is- 

 brought into relation very largely through his senses. 

 Nature (as we use the term) is primarily a world of 

 sense. The child sees it, feels it, hears, tastes, smells 

 it. The plants, animals, minerals, the flowers, birds, 

 and insects, the rocks and soil, the water and clouds, 

 appeal to the eye and ear. He begins to see and hear 

 and feel them as soon as he is born. His earliest edu- 

 cation in babyhood consists almost entirely in becoming 

 familiar with nature, this world of sense, through his 

 senses. 



Nature thus indicates unmistakably that the earliest 

 education of the child should be very largely centred 

 about and based upon that which appeals to his senses. 

 Building on what he sees, and therefore knows, he can 

 not only develop his power of seeing, but can exercise 

 the imagination with which he is so richly endowed. 

 He gives to bird and flower every human attribute, and 



