24 THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



some progress should have been made before this is done regularly. 

 A very cold day, a very warm one, a great storm, a long period 

 of calm settled weather all these should be chosen as occasions 

 to record the temperature and pressure, as texts for special 

 lessons. Again, to contrast with these one would take more 

 normal periods, and thus almost unconsciously, and without 

 special effort, associations would be formed in the minds of the 

 class between special figures and special conditions of the weather. 

 From daily observations of the rain-gauge something more might, 

 however, be learnt. 



Before going further it may be well to say something here on 

 the subject of measurements in the Nature Study course. In the 

 author's opinion any insistence upon measuring as measuring in 

 this course is wholly out of place. Our object is to fan the 

 natural interest in his surroundings which is the birthright of 

 every healthy child. It is to fan it especially by showing, in the 

 case of the simplest, most everyday phenomena, that by careful 

 observation we can discover hidden causal relations, can show 

 the connection between apparently isolated facts. At the same 

 time we have to strive to keep ever before us the fact that the 

 child is growing up in the midst of an ancient and highly complex 

 civilisation, where the means of satisfying intellectual curiosity 

 exist abundantly all through life. Our object then is to see not 

 that he leaves school a little scientist, but that he goes out into 

 the world with his initial curiosity stimulated, his powers of 

 observation strengthened, his thirst for knowledge unsated. 

 Next to the great and pressing danger of forcing facts upon him 

 before he is ready for them, is the danger of demanding from him 

 a degree of accuracy which as an undeveloped human being he 

 is incapable of giving. Both lead to exhaustion, to the suppression 

 of the curiosity which we want to stimulate. 



Many scientists, struck with our national want of exactness, 

 our national indifference to scientific method, urge the necessity 

 for attempting to combat this by insisting upon accuracy from 

 the earliest stages, and especially by making exact measurement 

 an important part of early education. But both mentally 

 and physically the child is unfit for the kind of accuracy which 

 demands delicate muscular adjustments ; even the thought that 



