PRINCIPLES DETERMINING METHOD. 157 



A third source of interest is participation, or self- 

 activity. Children are interested, in nature study or 

 anything else, in proportion as the teacher leads them 

 to see and think and do for themselves. The child 

 who makes a new discovery with his own eyes, or 

 works out for himself a new idea or thought, is much 

 more interested by and because of this self-activity, 

 than he who simply absorbs from book or teacher or 

 fellow-pupil. In nature study the children are much 

 more interested in material* which they have gathered 

 or cared for themselves. The more a teacher can lead 

 her pupils to get and take care of their own plants or 

 animals or stones, or make their own apparatus, the more 

 will they be interested. The more the children discover 

 for themselves new facts, the more they work out the 

 "why" and "how" of what they have discovered, the 

 more the pupils, rather than the teacher, compare and 

 generalize and deduce principles or laws, the greater 

 will be their interest. 



The interest will be increased, more especially with 

 young children, by emphasizing in nature study the 

 human or personal element, and particularly the child 

 element. We can study the plants and animals, not as 

 mere things, but as beings with human or child attri- 

 butes or characteristics. Even water and snow and 

 frost, lifeless things, can oftentimes be endowed with 

 human desires and sympathies. The poets thus per- 

 sonify flower and tree, and raindrop and stream. In 

 the childhood of the race all mankind personified na- 

 ture. The children naturally do the same. It is often 



