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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 99. 



■use ; and only liere and there, in the later 

 college experience, are some found still 

 functional enough to be stimulated into ac- 

 tivity. The public school system is seeking 

 to better the product ; but it is discourag- 

 ing so long as colleges demand specializa- 

 tion rather than an ' all round ' training. 



It may be worth while to call attention 

 to the fact that ' nature study ' holds no re- 

 lation to the study of the subject-matter as 

 presented in text-books, and that such a 

 presentation of it has no value in a scheme 

 of education that does not belong to any 

 other subject presented in the same way, 

 and for purposes of training might as well 

 be eliminated. The young mind does not 

 reach out after the text-book, but after nat- 

 ural objects themselves. This distinction 

 should be rigidly regarded, and text-book 

 work should never be admitted into the 

 category of ' nature study.' I grant to the 

 old aristocracy all the strictures upon the 

 results of science study it may care to im- 

 pose if this study is to be one of text-books. 

 One of the prominent things claimed for 

 nature study is that it breaks the shackles 

 of slavery to the book and introduces that 

 intellectual freedom in which one sees and 

 thinks for himself. 



This position of nature study, however, 

 as a means of general culture, as providing 

 the most favorable subject-matter for arous- 

 ing interest, is aside from the chief purpose 

 of this paper, which is to discover its pecu- 

 liar intellectual result, a result which can- 

 not be obtained by the use of any other sub- 

 ject, and without which intellectual devel- 

 opment is incomplete. 



It is commonly stated that the prominent 

 results of nature study are the cultivation 

 of the power of observation and of drawing 

 conclusions from observed facts. This is 

 certainly a beneficent result, but it cannot 

 be claimed as one peculiar to nature study ; 

 for it simply depends upon a method, the 

 laboratory method, which may be applied 



to a wide range of subjects. It is certain 

 that nature study has introduced the labora- 

 tory method into education, but having in- 

 troduced the method it cannot lay claim, as 

 a subject, to all the results. It is, perhaps, 

 true that the laboratory method is most 

 conveniently and completely applied in 

 nature study ; and that in most cases the 

 definite training in observation and deduc- 

 tion is still obtained from nature study ; but 

 this will become less true as proper educa- 

 tional methods are developed. For this 

 reason I take issue with a statement too 

 frequently made by those who have had no 

 training in science, that the function of sci- 

 ence in an educational scheme is to teach 

 laboratory methods . It is true that science, 

 by its example, has been the great teacher 

 of the laboratory method, but that is not 

 its function any more than the device of 

 algebraic symbols is the function of mathe- 

 matics. A method is not a purpose, but 

 has a purpose in view. 



Another conception of the function of 

 nature study is that it cultivates the power 

 and habit of analysis, and that its purpose 

 is analysis. This is a persistent conception 

 of science in the popular mind, and also in 

 the minds of many teachers of science, 

 judging by their methods. This, however, 

 is no more the purpose of nature study than 

 is the laboratory method. The latter is its 

 method, the former its preliminary step. 

 This preliminary step, called analysis, is no 

 more peculiar to nature study than are ob- 

 servation and deduction ; although it may 

 be more extensively and definitely culti- 

 vated in the so-called laboratories of science 

 than in other laboratories. The ultimate 

 purpose of nature study, and its peculiar 

 function in a system of education is 

 through analysis to reach synthesis. Its 

 purpose is a constructive one, based upon 

 facts which analysis reveals. It may seem 

 strange to some to regard the purpose of 

 science as a synthetic one, and the final 



