T2— THE PSYCHOLOGY 



such exercises. We are simply asking- y.>\.\v jnipils to shift counters on the surface 

 oi their paper. It is just as mechanical as making- pothooks, right and left curves, 

 straight lines, etc. 



In addition to these subjects there are also manual training, domestic science, 

 music and calisthenics, and cominercial transactions. There is no reason why the 

 elementary operations in connection with commerce should not be taught as a 

 part of arithmetic, and take the place of purelj-^ abstract problems which so often 

 find a place there. The chang-e would be beneficial in all respects. Music and 

 calisthenics have been sufficiently discussed. They are not subjects of study but 

 social activities. Manual training and domestic science should not be considered 

 as independent subjects of study any more than composition, reading, and draw- 

 ing. In one sense they are modes of expression, but in reality are the underlying- 

 activities of all education. Under these headings are arrang-ed a series of ac- 

 tivities typical of the development of the race, and as the race, in this reaction 

 upon materials from which food, clothing- and shelter have been obtained, has 

 learned to adjust environment to its needs,- so must the child react in a more ideal 

 wav upon material, to learn how to adjust environment to its needs. The 

 processes by which the race has developed must be repeated by the individual. 



Geog-raphy is advanced nature study and physiolog-y a branch of it. Practic- 

 ally, therefore, nature study is the one subject which demands all the modes of ex- 

 pression and is therefore adapted to each stage oi education. Yet this is the sub- 

 ject which we have omitted from our curriculum, putting in its stead as independent 

 subjects the very modes of expression which must of necessity be cultivated it 

 the subject be properly taug-ht. This is worse than asking a child to learn a 

 foreig-n tongue to the negflect of his vernacular. W'e ask our pupils to pass by the 

 wonders of creation at their very door and learn about ''African lions, Roman 

 emperors, mountains in the moon, and ang-els in heaven.'" What the Port Royal- 

 ists did for the child in emphasizing; the importance oi the vernacular, the advocates 

 of nature study are doing for the child of today. We discuss learnedly a Greek 

 ode but fail to discern the gfreat epic of creation writ largfe on every leaf, and 

 twig-, on field and wood, in sky and plain. 



Once properly correlated with the other subjects of our school curriculum, 

 the proper study of nature will revolutionize reading, drawing-, and composition, 

 if not writing- and other school subjects. History is but the ordsrl}- account of 

 Nature's masterpiece in his social relations, and literature is the product of a 

 complex organization, which has its counterpart in the lowest organism. No 

 other study is so comprehensive as nature and none is so accessible. It requires 

 neither building;, books, nor equipment, except such as nature has provided for us. 



" Music in trees, books in the running brooks. 

 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 



Nature has been and still is the immediate environment of the majority ot the 

 human race, and the senses have been adapted to detect its variations just so far 

 and as long- as necessary. The sense of smell has ceased to be an educative 

 sense and taste has been reduced to a position of unimportance but all the 

 other senses are still of vital importance. 



In the evolution of the race natural objects were first of interest — utilitarian 

 interest, and I think we are safe in saving that all interest is based on the 



