APPENDIX. 555 



botany, entomology, geology, and the like. That is, it takes? the things at 

 hand and endeavors to understand them, without reference to the systematic 

 order or relationships of the objects. It is wholly informal and unsystematic, 

 the same as the objects are which one sees. It is entirely divorced from defini- 

 tions, or from explanations in books. It is, therefore, supremely natural. It 

 simply trains the eye and the mind to see and to comprehend the common 

 things of life ; and the result is not directly the acquirement of science but the 

 establishing of a living sympathy with everything that is. 



The proper objects of nature study are the things which one oftenest meets. 

 To-day it is a stone; to-morrow it is a twig, a bird, an insect, a leaf, a flower. 

 The child, or even the high-school pupil, is first interested in things which do 

 not need to be analyzed or changed into unusual forms or problems. There- 

 fore, problems of chemistry and of physics are for the most part unsuited to 

 early lessons in nature study. Moving things, as birds, insects and mammals, 

 interest children most and therefore seem to'be the proper subjects for nature- 

 study ; but it is often ditficult to secure specimens when wanted especially in 

 liberal quantity, and still more diflacult to see the objects in perfectly natural 

 conditions. Plants are more easily had, and are, therefore, more practicable 

 for the purpose, although animals and minerals should by no means be 

 excluded. 



If the objects to be studied are informal, the methods of teaching should be 

 the same. If nature study were made a stated part of a curriculum, its pur- 

 pose would be defeated. The chiefest difficulty with our present school methods 

 is the necessary formality of the courses and the hours. Tasks are set, and 

 tasks are always hard. The only way to teach nature study is, with no course 

 laid out, to bring in whatever object may be handy and to set the pupils to 

 looking 'at it. The pupils do the work,— they see the thing and explain its 

 structure and its meaning. The exercise should not be long, not to exceed 

 fifteen minutes at any time, and, above all things, the pupil should never look 

 upon it as a recitation, and there should never be an examination. It should 

 come as a rest exercise, whenever the pupils become listless. Ten minutes a 

 day, for one term, of a short, sharp, and spicy observation upon plants, for 

 example, is worth more than a whole text-book of botany. 



The teacher should studiously avoid definitions, and the setting of patterns. 

 The old idea of the model flower is a pernicious one, simply because it does not 

 exist in nature. The model flower, the complete leaf, and the like, are infer- 

 ences, and pupils should always begin with things and not with ideas. In 

 other words, the ideas should be suggested by the things, and not the things by 

 the ideas. "Here is a drawing of a model flower," the old method says ; "go 

 and find the nearest approach to it." "Go and find me a flower," is the true 

 method, " and let us see what it is." 



Every child, and every grown person too, for that matter, is interested in 

 nature study, for it is the 'natural method of acquiring knowledge. The only 

 difficulty lies in the teaching, for very few teachers have had any drill or experi- 

 ence in this informal method of drawing out the observing and reasoning 

 powers of the pupil wholly without the use of text-books. The teacher must 

 first of all feel the living" interest in natural objects which it is desired the 

 pupils shall acquire. If the enthusiasm is not catching, better let such teach- 

 ing alone. 



All this means that the teacher will need helps. He will need to inform 

 himself before he attempts to inform the pupil. It is not necessary that he 

 become a scientist in order to do this. He simply goes as far as he knows, and 

 then says to the pupils that he can not answer the questions which he can not. 

 This at once raises his estimation in the mind of the pupil, for the pupil is 

 convinced of his truthfulness, and is made to feel — but how seldom is the 

 sensation ! — that knowledge is not the peculiar property of the teacher^ but is 

 the right of any one who seeks it. It sets the pupil investigating for himself. 

 The teacher never needs to apologize for nature. He is teaching simply 



