METHOD OF STUDYING MATERIAL. 195 



turn toward or follow the sun ; do its flowers close at 

 night ; is it the home of any animals, caterpillars, insects, 

 birds ? Is it a leaf or flower or root or branch, or feather 

 or shell, a part of something ? To what did it belong ? 

 Of what was it a part ? Where did it come from ? 



In the case of minerals, the relation to environment 

 is not so intimate or evident, and therefore not so im- 

 portant or essential, as in animals and plants. Forces, 

 studied in physics and in chemistry, have no environ- 

 ment; they are everywhere. But minerals and rocks 

 can be considered as earth materials, and physical forces 

 as earth forces. Particularly in earlier years, it is help- 

 ful thus to relate them very closely to the earth (and 

 to geography), quartz and sandstone becoming the most 

 abundant materials out of which Mother Nature has 

 built the crust of the earth, and heat the force which 

 she uses to change the earth's crust. Later, with ma- 

 ture pupils, minerals and rocks may be unified by group- 

 ing them according to their chemical composition, and 

 forces related through the law of gravity or the -law of 

 conservation of energy. 



By thus always relating all things studied to nature, 

 to their natural environment, rather than studying 

 them as isolated leaves or stones or snails in the school- 

 room, unrelated to nature, we help the child to start 

 his study with something akin to unity. The different 

 things studied are brought together again in a subse- 

 quent step, comparison and classification, or generaliza- 

 tion, and are thus more or less unified at the beginning 

 and at the end. 



