32 Education through Nature 



But ideals will not be materialized, and they conse- 

 quently create wants that do not refer so much to 

 the grosser struggle for existence as to the enjoyment 

 of the higher pleasures of the spiritual life. The 

 enjoyment of the good, the beautiful, and the true 

 are needs which every normal human being must 

 feel as soon as released from the relentless grasp of 

 nature by a successful struggle for material existence. 



Moral education becomes, therefore, an essential 

 element of the ideal education. Our relation to the 

 whole as parts of the infinite must ultimately be the 

 problem of every sane mind which has seriously strug- 

 gled for intellectual emancipation. 



Montesquieu, in his " Spirit of Laws/ 7 treats law not 

 as regards its content, but rather as regards its rela- 

 tion to various grades of human society. Is it true 

 that the relation of one thing to another which is too 

 subtle to be stated in physical terms, too obscure to 

 be but vaguely or not at all comprehended by us, is 

 what we mean by the spiritual? The development 

 of the biological and social sciences, and especially 

 the theory of evolution, enables us better to appreci- 

 ate the importance of the relationships of things, 

 especially the interdependence of human beings and 

 their vital relation to lower creatures. The social 

 side of education is being emphasized as never before. 

 One excuse for the introduction of nature study is 

 that it promotes this social adjustment by developing a 

 keen interest in living things, and a sympathy with things 

 that are not immediately objects of personal selfishness. 



Finally, the breaking up of feudalism, the abolition 

 of human slavery, and the spread of democracy are 

 only so many evidences of a powerful tendency of 

 even the human mind to conform to the laws which 

 nature in its universal interdependence teaches. The 

 works of man crumble and decay, and only that is 

 enduring which embodies the eternal laws of nature. 



