30 THE NATURE STUDY COURSE. 



Nature Study Record Books.— Guarding against the 



danger that Dr. Bigelow points out — quoted in the paragraph 

 on Expression 1 — final records of investigations and experiments 

 as well as all other expressive work in writing, drawing and 

 color, should be done with critical care and the greatest 

 technical precision of which the pupil is capable. These 

 exercises should be preserved and if they are done on pages of 

 nearly uniform size, such pages may be made into books by 

 punching holes near the back through which cords or ribbons 

 may be passed. Esthetic education is promoted by encouraging 

 appropriate decoration of the covers and of the corners, 

 margins and titles of the pages. In some lessons the objects 

 studied or parts of them are of such nature and dimensions 

 that specimens of them may be attached to the page by sewing 

 or binding, gluing or pocketing. Such objects may be 

 attached to separate bits of paper, and many of the drawings 

 and colorings may be done on separate pieces, and all these 

 sewed or gummed on the written pages at places that have 

 been left blank to receive them. 



Students in the writer's classes are advised to record their 

 original observations with scrupulous accuracy as to facts, 

 dates, places, etc., in ordinary note-books and then when the 

 impressional and reasoning parts of the study are completed 

 to make a continuous and artistic summary of the expressional 

 parts in language, drawing, color, and, where practicable, to 

 add constructions and objects. The pages bearing the summary 

 are submitted to the teacher for review and if found worthy 

 are permitted to be put in the " Nature Study Books " for 

 preservation. 



To illustrate. Some circumstance occurred to excite the 

 interest of a class in the distinction between the hard and the 

 soft maples. Examples of each of six different species are 



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