32 THE NATURE STUDY COURSE. 



enough to take much trouble to collect leaves and flowers of 

 such species. So much for the inductive part of the work. 

 On the deductive side appropriate uses of the different woods 

 were inferred, and the values of the different kinds for shade 

 or sugar-making were considered. 



By this time there was an accumulation of specimens, 

 drawings, dated observations, notes and inferences to be 

 worked over into an intelligible, systematic and artistic 

 expression worthy to be preserved in the nature study record 

 books. References to the maple in song, story or art were 

 sought to complete the record. 



It is worth while to take another illustration of a different 

 kind. Now and again during the term occasion arose, or was 

 made, to manipulate glass. Cutting of pieces had to be done 

 and this was accomplished with a newly-broken file, or 

 scissors under water, or a steel glass-cutter; a hole had to be 

 bored through a bottle near its base to receive an improvised 

 stopcock ; tubing had to be bent in the flame ; a large bottle 

 had to be cut below the shoulder to make a temporary 

 aquarium ; a glass plate had to be ground for a camera ; an 

 etched label was required for an acid bottle, etc. After these 

 experiences had established an interest, a study of glass and its 

 manipulation was assigned. Observations and comparisons 

 were made, and the experiments were repeated. At the 

 conclusion of the study the pages in the nature study record 

 books showed : 1st, the qualities of glass as discovered by the 

 five senses ; 2nd, its properties, such as fracture, fusibility, 

 gravity ; 3rd, the manipulations referred to above — etching, 

 boring, etc. Each of the third class of records stated how the 

 need for the manipulation arose; the method of performing it, 

 the theory, and other applications if any could t>e supposed. 

 These were not records of what one student saw another or 

 the teacher do or had been heard of, but records in which the 

 first personal pronoun was used for the observer, doer, and 



