DEFINITE AIM IN NATURE STUDY. 7 



Definite Aim in Nature Study.— It is of the highest 



importance that a teacher should be conscious of a definite 

 aim or purpose in the teaching of any subject, since the aim 

 determines the means to be employed, the choice of materials, 

 and the tests of the success of the teaching. This is especially 

 true of Nature Study, and none the less so because the study 

 may legitimately have several aims. Prof. Hodge's book, 

 "Nature Study and Life," is based on "the things best 

 worth knowing." This view admits lessons on bacteria, scale- 

 insects, the economic value of the food of toads and robins. 

 Dr. Bigelow's book, " How Nature Study should be Taught," 

 is true throughout to its key-note ' love of nature.' He 

 would relegate bacteria and scale-insects to the class in 

 science. Prof. McGovern's "Nature Study and Related 

 Literature" very emphatically, if not professedly, teaches 

 Nature Study that the learner may be trained to appreciate 

 the beautiful literature that nature has inspired. 



But in Nature Study neither increment of knowledge, even 

 of economic knowledge, nor enrichment of sympathy, should be 

 given dominance over the training of the child in the means of 

 discovering truth by the proper exercise of his self -activities. 

 " The first work of education," says President Eliot, " and the 

 last is to train men to think .... never can thinking come 

 by any compulsion from without, it must always and inevitably 

 be developed from within." Of lessons that pass the test of 

 interest, preference should be given to those that promise the 

 best results for observation and reasoning. Of two lessons 

 deemed nearly equal for training in investigation, give the 

 preference to the one that offers the richer heart-culture or the 

 more useful knowledge. When the aim urged here is judi- 

 ciously sought the others will be duly realized and that in 

 their proper relations. The education of the head and hand 

 is not here placed higher than that of the heart, but it is 

 recognized that the heart cannot be properly educated without 



