PREFACE 



BOOKS about nature study have become numerous, perhaps 

 more numerous than good teachers of it. These books deal 

 with principles and methods and somewhat with material, so 

 that the student or the teacher need be at no loss for sugges- 

 tions. But the subject is so new and nature so extensive and 

 the suggestions as to use of material often so general that the 

 books seem to differ confusingly, and the honest seeker for 

 help often becomes more mystified the more he reads. In fact, 

 nature study is still in the period of suggestion, a period which 

 may be trying to the experienced teacher, but which is a neces- 

 sary antecedent to the period of experiment. The time has 

 come for extensive experiment by trained teachers, putting to 

 rigorous test the suggestions that seem hopeful. Teachers 

 will always have the last word. 



It is not with the hope that this confusion of suggestions will 

 be cleared up that these pages are written. Their purpose is 

 simply to state the situation in such a way that the teacher may 

 become more independent in his work and thought and thereby 

 better able to eliminate confusion from his own particular 

 problem. We shall never reach general agreement in this 

 matter until many good teachers have conducted careful ex- 

 periments and their results have been sifted. Even when this 

 is done, teachers themselves are such variable factors that no 

 hard-and-fast schemes of nature study can be or ought to be 

 constructed, but rather an approved body of principles, the 

 details of whose application must be left to the individual 

 teacher. 



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