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teachers has convinced me that plant life furnishes 

 the best material for beginning nature study. The 

 most common weeds and garden plants are the best, 

 the bean and pea and morning glory and corn, the 

 plaintain and burdock and dandelion. These are 

 a part of every child's environment, are abundant 

 everywhere, even in the heart of the great cities ; they 

 are interesting, simple, and easily understood, and can 

 be placed in the hands of each child, so that each 

 child can see and tell and think for himself. Their 

 whole life history can often be easily followed. I 

 believe, too, that the teachers are more familiar with 

 plants than with animals or minerals or physics or 

 chemistry. 



Need I say : It must be a plant study, not book 

 study, the genuine personal individual investigation of 

 plants by the pupils themselves. The teacher who, 

 under the guise of nature study, merely reads to her 

 pupils or merely has them read about the curious 

 plants and ferocious animals of Europe, Asia, and 

 Africa, and never turns their eyes to the dandelion at 

 their feet, the birds and insects above them, should be 

 shut up in an educational reform school until she 

 amends her ways. The teacher who places before her 

 pupils a book from which to absorb what they should 

 see with their own eyes, who tells them what they 

 should investigate and discover for themselves, violates 

 every law of the educational decalogue. 



After some work with plants, which can be most 

 emphasized in the spring, some animal study can be 

 taken up, particularly in the fall. In this, insects and 

 birds will usually be found most abundant, attractive, 



