OF NATURE STUDY. —9 



while drawing' and oral expression should be gradually developed, as precision 

 of constructive activity makes these possible. 



The Secondary Stage. 



The secondary stage is one of great activity and the physiological condition 

 makes possible greater precision of movement. There should accordingly be A 

 better adaptation of means to end in his reaction upon his material environment^ 

 which he will now begin to view in its relation to social life. Direct stimulation of 

 the senses must continue as before but indirect stimulation should gradually become 

 more important. Objects need not be actually present but may be represented by 

 pictures, diagrams, etc., assisted, of course, by oral description, which, however, 

 is still subsidiary. The nature of more remote things is conceived through his 

 increased power of idealization. Hence interest widens beyond the immediate 

 present, which is actual, and enters the domain of imaginative activity. 



Ideas in this stage become more definite. Vague wholes, by the process of 

 analysis, are more clearly comprehended. Sensations and perceptions revive 

 images of objects not present, and images are constructed of experiences which 

 have not yet had existence in fact but which may be realized. There is, therefore^ 

 a great advance in ideal development, and at the same time there is a different- 

 iation of what has been realized from that which still remains idi-al or merely 

 imaged. 



The mode of expression will now be by reconstruction of material in the model 

 in wood or in metal and by drawing ; these two processes being complementary. 

 A model is made from a drawing and the object studied is represented for future 

 use and reference by a drawing. While irt the preceding stage, material was 

 studied as it affected the senses directly, it is now studied irt its relation to man ; 

 in its use as a factor in socializing the race ; for all this adaptation of material to 

 use has been the expression of higher social ideals. 



The aim oi" drawing should not be to secure perfection of form so much as to 

 secure free expression of thought. The perfect form will everttually follow, if the 

 thought of the perfect form is there. Then by interpreting the drawing either irt 

 the concrete material, e. g. wood, or b}' a verbal description, both thought and 

 expression are made more definite. 



The secret of correct drawing and exact making is comparison. The teachei* 

 will insist on the comparison of (l.) parts of an object with the whole ; (il.) parts 

 with each other; (ill.) wholes with each other. All such comparison and adapt- 

 ation is a process of abstraction, so that the pupil is being prepared for a higher 

 stage of mental development. 



The subjects of study for this stage are, therefore, those which involve the 

 study of material and the processes by which this material has been made to serve 

 social progress. But as mental development has not yet reached the stage of dis- 

 covering laws and underlying principles, the study must be Hmited largely to gain- 

 ing information about these materials, and repeating hi a limited -way, some of the 

 t)'pical processes which have influenced social progress. The teacher will now 

 find memory and imagination active and need not depend upon actual presentation 

 of material, but may extend the field of operations by the use of pictures, etc. 



