General Aims of Nature Study 55 



of expressing ideas is by means of oral language. 

 Later it adopts other means, such as drawing, making, 

 and writing. 



Each of these modes of expression has its own ad- 

 vantages and disadvantages. Many ideas can be 

 expressed orally which cannot be expressed by draw- 

 ing or by making; and, on the other hand, many ideas, 

 such as color and form, can be better expressed by 

 means of the pencil and brush. 



It is self-evident, of course, that ideas must exist 

 in the mind before they can be expressed. The 

 expression of ideas, however, involves neural pro- 

 cesses and muscular activity which react on the mind, 

 and thus become intimately concerned in that final 

 product, mental power, which is the great aim of our 

 work. 



Then, too, by expressing an idea we are better able 

 to criticise it. We often discover the inadequacy of 

 our knowledge by trying to express it, and are led to 

 re-examine facts and phenomena from different points 

 of view. Mental assimilation is thus promoted, and 

 ideas assume their due prominence in relation to one 

 another. It is by the pupil's expression of his ideas 

 that the inner cerebral mechanism is revealed to the 

 teacher, who is thus enabled to correct erroneous 

 impressions, or to guide the pupil to proper self -activity. 



It was a fundamental principle in the philosophy 

 of the founder of the kindergarten that development 

 is an unfolding of intrinsic powers, and that expression 

 is evidence of that unfolding. Such expression, how- 

 ever, is mere play, for it is not guided by external 

 reality, nor adapted to it. The selection, in the strug- 

 gle for existence, which contact with nature involves, 

 does not operate amid such conditions, and the expres- 

 sion, therefore, is but the outward manifestation of 

 lawless cerebrations within. That is not nature study. 



Nature study is deriving ideas, through the senses, 



