THE EXPRESSIVE WORK OF THE SCHOOL. 237 



Rightly considered, one is simply one means by which 

 the other may be attained. The parent or teacher or 

 school officer is perfectly right in believing that the 

 children must be taught reading, writing, arithmetic, 

 and geography, and right in opposing the introduction 

 into our schools of anything which takes the place of 

 these " essentials," or weakens the effective work in 

 them. 



While nature study has a most important place in our 

 elementary schools, just as science has a place in higher 

 educational institutions, independent of its relations to 

 or effect on other school-work, the extent to which it 

 makes and keeps a place in the average school, under 

 average conditions as they exist at present, with average 

 school officers and teachers, will depend very largely on 

 the extent to which it is shown to be helpful in other 

 school-work. The opposition to nature study by the 

 stanch believers in "the three R's " will be best over- 

 come by those who most conclusively demonstrate that 

 nature study does not in any way take the place of the 

 essentials, but, rightly taught, greatly helps them. 



Nature study is simply a recognition of the depend- 

 ence of the child on sense-perception. What comes 

 through his senses makes the clearest and deepest im- 

 pression, and forms the best foundation for expression 

 in language, drawing, and reading, for geography and 

 for other school-work. 



The relation of the work of the elementary school to 

 the two immediate centres of education, nature study 



