58 Education through Nature 



It is a common experience to find that children 

 and unscientific people inquire about the name of an 

 object, but often manifest no desire to know more 

 about it. If the teacher knows the name of the object, 

 it may be well to give it at the proper time, but better 

 still to teach the pupil how to find the name by refer- 

 ence to authorities. One important feature of the 

 unabridged dictionaries is often overlooked that, 

 namely, which gives the figures and the names of most 

 common objects. But the pupil should be trained 

 to realize that the important characters of an object 

 are of greater value than its name. To study nature 

 by merely learning the names of things would be 

 about as sensible as to study economics or sociology 

 by learning the names of the inhabitants of the com- 

 munity. John Smith the man should be of greater 

 importance than John Smith the name. 



There are many names, like many laws, that are 

 common to many or all living things. Such names 

 should be insisted upon in this work. They are the 

 labels by which we identify bundles of facts, con- 

 veniences of which the teacher, at least, cannot afford 

 to be ignorant. 



Generalization in Nature Study. 



Extremely important as observation is, it is not to 

 be cultivated for its own sake. To be constantly 

 attending to every trifle, without assimilating what is 

 observed, is a useless waste of time. Indeed, there is 

 danger in nature-study work of overdoing observation 

 to such an extent as to preclude the possibility of 

 reflection. A dilettanteism may be developed in 

 which the mind passes lightly from one fact to an- 

 other without perceiving the import of the fact or 

 its relation to other facts. That is not peculiar to 

 nature study. Superficial reading produces the same 

 mental habit. 



