177 



While this retrograde movement has progressed in the higher 

 education, a counter movement has arisen for the introduction 

 of "nature study" into the earHer years of the common schools- 

 Biology necessarily is the principal content of Nature Study. If 

 such study does not interfere with the preparation to meet the 

 requirements for promotion to higher grades, there is hope for 

 the success of the movement, and so in time, everybody will be 

 given a kindergarten knowledge of biology. But is this amount 

 c^ knowledge sufficient for a full and perfect living ? 



It is a trite saying that education has a two-fold aim, viz.: the 

 training of faculties, and the acquisition of truth. We have other 

 faculties than those involved in the three R's ; and there is truth 

 outside the so-called " humanities." The objective world of 

 nature incarnates at least one half of truth. 



Nature is not a disagreeable prison house to be shunned but 

 it is the handiwork of the Almighty — the macrocosm out of 

 which Man the microcosm has been evolved, to reflect the image 

 of God. The natural sciences may properly be contrasted with 

 the "humanities" by being called the "divinities" ; a man has 

 only a one-sided education who has not studied both. 



Such a symmetrical education should be provided as a "gen- 

 eral course" lying as a foundation for all special courses. Such 

 a course has been crowded out of the college ; it must find place 

 in the high school, where it should be nourished and defended, 

 as the fruiting of the common course of the lower grades. The 

 high school is the people' s college. We should substitute for the 

 old three-legged-stool ideal of education, called the three R's a 

 broad, up-to-date, common, intellectual bond for all mankind. 

 Such a course should consist of equal proportions of six subjects ; 

 and the school day should be divided into six equal periods to 

 accommodate them : viz., language, mathematics, manual train- 

 ing, history, geography, and art training (or ethics). Political 

 geography is best studied with history; but geography as "the 

 description of the world " means nature study, or the natural 

 sciences. 



Nature always presents itself as a complex unit to be analyzed* 

 and therefore the earlier study of nature should be general and 



