Nor need I plead for the child. Nature study and 

 child study are but two phases of the same thing ; the 

 child is man nearest to nature, most natural ; nature 

 study and child study go hand in hand. Studying 

 nature with the child will lead to the study of the child. 

 Studying the child will, I am sure, lead to nature study 



The child has a two-fold environment — nature and 

 man. In his early life, the world of nature is his world. 

 His earliest education is almost entirely in nature 

 study and by nature's methods, an education of seeing 

 and doing, of using his powers and developing them by 

 using. Is there any reason why this should stop when 

 he enters our school ? Is there any more natural way, 

 any better way, of developing his powers, than to follow 

 the leading of nature, help and train him to see and do 

 more and then to tell and think about what he has seen 

 and done ? Is there any knowledge which is more 

 essential to him than a knowledge of his surroundings, 

 of his world ? Nor can he study anything which is 

 purer and cleaner and more perfect than nature, which 

 will appeal more strongly to the best in him, more effec- 

 tually lead him up to the great thoughts which pervade 

 all nature. 



The education of the past has been too exclusively a 

 study of one part of the child's environment — man and 

 his experience, his language, his history, his methods of 

 exact reasoning. Its method has been too much a 

 process of absorbing knowledge from book or teacher 

 with a resulting loss in the power of seeing and doing 

 and telling and thinking. 



The objects of nature study, this continuation in the 

 school of the work of mother nature in childhood, are : 



