NATURE STUDY VERSUS ELEMENTARY SCIENCE. 6 



I see now that it was only information and composition. 

 There was no investigation by the pupils. What little in- 

 vestigating was done I did myself. The lessons, however, 

 were good of their kind, and I continue them under the name 

 of object lessons, but I do not now call them Nature Study." 



Nature Study versus Elementary Science.— The 



difference between education by nature and information 

 about nature is easily understood ; it is more difficult to draw 

 the line between Nature Study and Elementary Science.* 

 Nature Study is simpler, indeed someone has misconceived it 

 as "science in words of one syllable." But the difference is 

 not in simplicity or in the subject matter of study. Science 

 is the ordering and organizing of related facts into a system ; 

 it deals with facts that are selected for their fitness in one or 

 another scheme of generalization. When the learner's interest 

 centres on a particular dog or flower or toy, and especially 

 upon the phases of the individual that seem to touch his own 

 life, he has the Nature Study attitude ; but when his interest 

 is concerned with the class of object of which his Fido or 

 geranium or pump is a type then his attitude is scientific. 

 Of the teacher's attitude, Prof. Bailey says, in effect, that 

 when the teacher is thinking chiefly of the subject or subject 

 matter of instruction he is probably teaching science, but 

 when he is concerned chiefly with the effects of the lesson 

 upon the development of the child he is probably teaching 

 Nature Study. 



In Nature Study the teacher's attention is focused on the 

 learner ; in science, upon the subject matter of the lesson. In 

 science the lesson is selected on account of its relation to a 

 body of facts already taught ; in Nature Study the child's 

 interest dominates the choice. Appetite is in some respects 



*In "Guide to Nature Study" (The Copp, Clark Co., Limited), pp. 10-15, three 

 lessons on The Wasp illustrate the differences in the information, science, and nature 

 study methods of treatment. 



