1:22 Education through Nature 



the ability to assimilate facts and to build out of them 

 a complex structure, a general idea. 



Facts properly assimilated reveal a relationship to 

 one another, the one appearing to grow out of the 

 other as cause and effect, or as links in a long chain 

 of development. The discovery of these relations 

 and the understanding of their importance is mental 

 assimilation, because facts become thus interwoven 

 in our mental fabric, and hence vital elements in our 

 mental life. We are not merely to haul stone, lumber, 

 and mortar for a building leaving it piled up in ugly, 

 disorderly heaps; we are not merely to gather the 

 unwashed fleece or the crude fibers of the cotton 

 plant, but we are to build from these materials a 

 beautiful structure, and a fabric both delicate, refined, 

 and enduring. 



The means by which the facts of experience are 

 built into a connected system is comparison and 

 discussion. The discovery of similarities and dif- 

 ferences develops the idea of interdependence and 

 relationship and the tracing of these relationships is 

 provocative of that self-activity commonly called 

 thought. The teacher can do much to stimulate 

 thought, provided she is able to rise above the isolated 

 fact and to interpret it in the light of a more general 

 idea. 



The teacher should cultivate in herself that versatility 

 which makes it possible to view facts from the stand- 

 point of the child without becoming childish; and, 

 also, from a philosophic standpoint without becoming 

 abstruse. Nothing can help her so much in this as a 

 thorough scientific mastery of the subject. Such a 

 scientific training ought to give her a knowledge 

 of the underlying laws and principles. Knowing 

 these she will have that freedom in handling facts 

 which conduces so much to clearness and interest. 



She will hardly, then, commit the mistake of making 



