2 NATURE STUDY 



school curriculum, be daily and continuous in order to work out 

 the growth and development for which it is particularly adapted. 



It should be carefully adapted to the nature and powers of 

 grades where it is represented. In the lower grades nature stud}- 

 should not be carried on in the method of any of the formal 

 sciences. This would insure failure. It is only with a wide ex- 

 perience with natural phenomena and a certain maturity of mind, 

 that the organization of the accumulated facts into a science is to 

 be accomplished with profit. 



The work in the elementary grades should be with objects 

 and experiments treated simply as phenomena. These furnish 

 the material for exercises in accurate seeing and clear thinking. 

 The phases of the phenomena should be within the child's 

 interests and powers. The child's interest in nature cannot be 

 that of an adult, and much less will it be that of one who has 

 long been a student of nature. This fact makes it difficult for 

 the adult, altho himself a student of nature, to select the work 

 that can be most profitably used with children. We shall fail if 

 we do not keep within the limits of the child's interests. We 

 shall fail if we do not make use of that in nature which has real 

 significance. The teacher should have a loving sj'mpathy with 

 the child, and at the same time a clear knowledge of the little bit 

 of nature he makes use of in his work. He must attempt to 

 understand the child's nature, its demands and its rights, and 

 seek to meet those demands and respect the rights. 



However, it is even more of an error to regard the child as 

 less serious and less capable than he really is, as appears to be 

 the case with some writers and teachers in nature study who 

 attempt to "write down to children." This so-called writing 

 down to children takes various disagreeable forms. Some teachers 

 appear to think that nothing but a joke will interest a child. By 

 them all nature is treated as a huge joke, but, it must be confessed, 

 a rather poor one. Thru all their lessons there is a constant 

 straining to be funny, with the usual success of trying to find a 

 joke where there is none. 



Others are impressed with the necessitj^ of "being livel3^" 

 Now liveliness is wholly to be commended when inspired by the 

 subject and the class. In fact, it is hard to avoid a normal 

 degree of it if one truly feels the situation. But "being lively" 



