J Till! NATURE STUDY COURSE. 



What Nature Study Is.— The new name has the dis- 

 advantage of being easily, as it is frequently, misunderstood 

 to be the learning of a mass of facts about natural objects. 

 Nature Study is natural study, that is, studying by natural 

 methods. It is intellectual, physical and moral development 

 by and through purposeful action and re-action upon environ- 

 ment, guided, so far as need be, by the teacher. Memorizing 

 facts about seeds and flowers, birds and insects, clouds and 

 rivers, from spoken or printed words, or even from pictures, 

 has no claim to be called Nature Study. Information comes 

 from Nature Study, and that or enjoyment, usually both, may 

 be what the child seeks ; but from the teacher's point of view 

 the vitally important part of the lesson is the series of 

 activities put forth by the child. The verbal or pictorial 

 descriptions, sometimes served to children as Nature Study 

 lessons, are only the expressions of some other persons' 

 nature studies. In many lessons, even in good lessons, it may 

 be unavoidable, or for valid reasons advisable, to give some 

 information, but to the extent that second-hand knowledge is 

 used to that extent the lesson falls short of beiug real Nature 

 Study. 



The following is quoted with permission : " I had a dozen or 

 fifteen cardboard boxes, each containing a group of related 

 objects. One held a ripe stem of wheat and a stem of each of 

 the other cereals; a second had a sample of each of eight 

 kinds of nuts ; a third contained a number of pretty corals 

 from the South Pacific ; the fourth held a cotton ball, a silk 

 cocoon, a bit of sheepskin and plants of flax and hemp, . . . 

 Each box served for a series of three lessons. I held the 

 articles up or passed them around, gave information about 

 them and had it returned to me in answer to questions. I 

 made drawings which the children copied and worked into 

 their compositions. We all enjoyed these lessons and they 

 won us a reputation for good Nature Study work . . . , 



