54 Education through Nature 



Knowledge is valuable, intrinsically, in proportion 

 as it is scientific. But nature study should not be 

 made too matter-of-fact, because it is primarily in- 

 tended to develop those powers which will make 

 scientific work possible. A fact, however, should be 

 a real fact, not an imaginary one; and a clear distinc- 

 tion should be developed in the mind between fact 

 and fiction. There is little occasion for sympathy 

 with that ignorant sentimentalism which insists that 

 interest and appreciation can be divorced from knowl- 

 edge of facts. The youthful mind and the untrained 

 adult mind are too prone to dwell on the unreal and 

 the absurdly untrue, in fairy tales and fiction, to need 

 any encouragement in this department of school work. 

 From the character of the pupil as he enters the school, 

 and from the natural course which his development 

 must take, it seems reasonable to say that the nature- 

 study work should be made more and more scientific 

 from the lower grades up. In the upper grades it 

 can hardly be made too scientific. Considering the 

 scientific preparation of teachers even in many high- 

 schools, the danger is that it must either become mere 

 recitation from a text-book or else only a crude imita- 

 tion of scientific work. Again, it may be said that the 

 little science pupils in the grades are able to master, 

 even when conditions are most favorable, will not hurt 

 them, as some theorists seem to believe. 



VII. Expression and Generalization. 



Expression in Nature Study. An important principle 

 in pedagogy is this, "the idea before the word." The 

 development of language, both in the race and in the 

 individual, teaches us that language is the result of 

 ideas, not necessarily the cause of them. When the 

 child has gained, through experience with its environ- 

 ment, certain ideas, it feels the need of expressing 

 them. As a social being, on entering school, its mode 



