THE LIMITATIONS OF NATURE STUDY. 139 



makes the brook and valley he has studied a starting- 

 point for wanderings by the great streams, and through 

 the valleys of other lands. 



Even in the earliest school-years not all his work, 

 however, should be a study of nature. He must begin 

 his study of man. But that must be largely limited to 

 a study of man's relation to nature. From the study 

 of what he can see, and therefore can understand, in 

 his home and the home relations, he can pass to the 

 homes of other children, of Agoonack, the child of 

 the north ; of Gemila, the child of the desert. 



Man, as an intellectual being, does not appeal to the 

 little child. His early relations with mother are purely 

 physical. He has little or nothing at first to give him 

 any idea of man as a mind, or the possessor of an intel- 

 lect; nothing to relate him to his intellectual environ- 

 ment. As he grows older, he begins to understand 

 something of the mind of man, but through the medium 

 of his sense perceptions. Not until several years after 

 birth does he show much intellectual power. Not un- 

 til then is he well fitted for the formal study of his 

 intellectual environment. As his intellect develops, he 

 is more closely related to the intellectual world about 

 him ; his intellectual environment becomes more im- 

 portant, and its study can and should be made more 

 prominent. 



If this is true, then the two centres of education are 

 not equally important at all times, and should not be 

 made equally prominent throughout the school course. 

 In the earlier years of the school-life, nature should be 



