32 NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



as much training to make such selection as may be sup- 

 posed. A little reading, some experience, and a few ques- 

 tions directed to those who know and are glad to help 

 will suffice. Besides, no one expects every selection of 

 material to be wise; even in university laboratories we are 

 doubtless giving much attention to certain things that will 

 later turn out to be of trifling importance. The best that 

 can be done is to avoid the obviously trivial whenever it 

 becomes obvious to the teacher. 



There are teachers honest enough to recognize and 

 acknowledge that they have been dealing with trifles. They 

 confessed that they were " marking time"; trying to fill the 

 assigned period with anything that occurred to them. As 

 a salve to conscience the exercise was called " busy work," 

 instead of nature study, and that is a capital name for all 

 dead work in nature study; work which keeps the pupils 

 busy even if they* are neither interested nor profited. 

 Classes are many in which leaves brought in day after day 

 are used in such work, presumably because they are 

 abundant and varied and can fill in more periods than any 

 other material ; but classes are still rare in which the really 

 important things about leaves are observed. 



There seems to be an impression with some teachers 

 that the most important things to observe even about fa- 

 miliar objects are those things most unusual to the pupil's 

 experience. The fact is that the most important things 

 are the most obvious, so obvious that it almost seems foolish 

 to call attention to them. They are so common to the 

 experience of everyone that they do not seem to need con- 

 sideration. For example, who does not know that leaves 

 are green? But why? This is the question that so 



