240 NATURE STUDY. 



strengthened rather than weakened by devoting a por- 

 tion of the time in elementary schools to content 

 studies, such as science and history and literature, but, 

 what is much more important, the children receive 

 better, richer, more nutritious mental food, and are 

 thereby broadened and developed. Before, they were 

 fed too largely on something akin to husks, form or 

 externals rather than content. 



As has been said in previous chapters, nature study 

 is particularly valuable as a content study and basis for 

 work with children, because it appeals directly to their 

 senses, through which the ideas of children must ul- 

 timately come. As the children grow older and have 

 acquired through their senses a larger stock of ideas, 

 or apperceiving concepts, more and more attention can 

 be given to those studies which do not appeal so directly 

 to the senses ; to such studies as history and literature. 



It is as a content study, serving as a basis for the 

 formal or instrumental or expressive studies, that na- 

 ture study will meet the least opposition. Teachers in 

 communities opposed to " fads," so called, will find it 

 wise to emphasize the value of nature study in reading, 

 writing, drawing, and geography. 



On the other hand, those children will get the most 

 from nature study or any other distinctively content 

 study who are led to express most carefully what they 

 have learned. Their ideas are not clear until they are 

 expressed. From any point of view it is wise to insist 

 on careful expression, to correlate closely the content 

 studies and the formal studies. 



