Prefi 



ace 



teaching nature study must be based on the more 

 fundamental laws of life and development, rather than 

 on the individual tastes of him who applies it. These 

 individual likes and dislikes are transient phases, 

 fluctuating and varying, and apt to lead to those 

 extremes which usually end in a reaction. Such 

 extremes are, therefore, to be avoided. We are to 

 base our method of teaching nature study neither 

 upon the economic value of the subject nor upon the 

 purely .emotional or sentimental aspect of it. We are 

 not to make it so practical as to render it impracticable; 

 nor so sentimental as to make it silly. That would be 

 an unfortunate tendency in our schools, if children 

 should be taught to know the busy bee, only to deter- 

 mine how many pounds of honey it can produce, and 

 how much hard cash, reckoned in dollars and cents, 

 it is worth to us. Groveling utilitarianism, like absurd 

 sentimentalism, are passing phases of extremes in edu- 

 cation that cannot endure. We need knowledge, 

 united with common sense, to control these two ex- 

 tremes of civilized life. Knowledge wedded to common 

 sense, yielding that intellectual honesty which contact 

 with nature promotes, must find the golden mean 

 between erratic extremes. 



Considering that the majority of public-school 

 children do not enter the high school, there is little 

 danger, perhaps, of making the work too scientific. 

 All the science they are able to master will not hurt 

 them any, as some teachers seem to fear. Much is 

 being said now about child study and child interest. 

 May not some attention to the proper method of 

 studying objects enable us better to understand the 

 child? From what we already know of these obscure 

 subjects, it seems reasonable to assume that methods 

 n teaching should be such that the fullest exercise of 

 all the pupil's powers is secured, and the natural results 

 of those activities realized. 



