6 Preface 



children, asking their own mother their own questions 

 in their own language. 



The problem of education is, at bottom, the biologi- 

 cal problem of growth and development. There is 

 no one law which better expresses the fundamental 

 factors in development than that of "action and 

 reaction." This excludes the notion of isolation; 

 and emphasizes the fact of mutual interdependence; 

 the conception of matter and motion; the kinetic and 

 the static elements in nature, and the organic unity 

 of the world. 



With our advances in sciences, especially the biologi- 

 cal sciences, we are able now, better than ever before, 

 to appreciate the supreme importance of the physical 

 basis of our intellectual life. Strange to say, it is only 

 recently that the human mind has begun to realize ^ 

 that things grow; and that education is growth, modi- 

 fied and sustained by external influences. 



With the marked shifting of psychology, both in 

 matter and method, which biological research has 

 made necessary; with the accumulating results of 

 comparative philology and anthropology, showing the 

 origin and development of language, both in the indi- 

 vidual and in the race, to be dependent on physical 

 and biological factors; with the ever-increasing com- 

 plexity of social conditions accompanying social 

 and industrial evolution, making the environment of 

 children more and more artificial and abnormal, it 

 may be safe to predict that nature study, as a branch 

 of school work, will receive even greater attention than 

 it now does. 



It is now fifteen years since I first published an 

 outline for teaching nature study in the grades. The 

 method here presented is the result of a natural selec- 

 tion resulting from my experience in all grades of 

 school work and with all kinds of pupils. I have been 

 convinced by this experience that a good method of 



