56 NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



examined by different pupils or small groups of pupils. 

 The exercise may have dealt with such details that only 

 one kind was used, individual specimens having been 

 assigned to individual pupils or small groups. Or the 

 exercise may have been a general one, applying to a group 

 of types, as woodpeckers or evergreen trees. In either case 

 each pupil or group has made and recorded observations 

 that are presumably independent and honest. When all 

 these sets of observations are brought together and com- 

 pared, it will soon become apparent that there are differ- 

 ences. Far the most interesting way of comparing results 

 is to take them up item by item in a class meeting and call 

 for an oral statement in reference to them. Some of the 

 differences of statement will be so great as to appear like 

 contradictions. The chances are that a general oral 

 exercise of this kind will develop discussion and perhaps 

 dispute, and the more interested and eager the dispute can 

 become the better, for it means momentum for what must 

 follow, and clinches things in memory when agreement is 

 reached. 



The next step comes so naturally that it is likely to be 

 proposed by the pupils themselves. Differences and even 

 contradictions in the results demand a reexamination of 

 the material, each claimant undertaking to make his claim 

 good to the class as a whole. This will certainly detect 

 and so eliminate careless observations and dishonest 

 claims, and will stiffen the moral backbone in future 

 exercises. This phase of the result, however, is only in- 

 cidental, for the exercise is not meant to be a trap for the 

 careless and the dishonest. What we have in mind are 

 sets of honest and good observations that show differences 



