6 NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



just how to begin; just how, step by step, to give their first 

 lessons. It may be argued that to outline specific lessons 

 violates the ideals of nature study by making it rigid and 

 formal. But rigidity and formality are not so characteristic 

 of these lessons as is definiteness, and perhaps the most 

 serious charge brought against nature study is that it is 

 indefinite. It needs to be shown that it can be taught in a 

 perfectly definite manner. 



However, experience makes it plain that, with few 

 exceptions, nature study cannot gain a footing in the 

 schools on other and possibly more " ideal " terms. What 

 the untrained teacher must have before she can make a 

 real beginning is specific lesson plans about specific familiar 

 things. These suggestive lesson plans must be grounded 

 on good nature study principles, but they should lack noth- 

 ing in definiteness as to steps to be taken and results to be 

 achieved. 



Rousing of Latent Interest. — To train in a new subject 

 teachers already busily occupied with the old ones is a task 

 beset with difficulties, but it is encouraging to find almost 

 everywhere teachers eager to get light in the matter as op- 

 portunity is afforded. And, backed by such interest, the 

 work is not at all difficult. 



This interest, which appears to be persistent and in- 

 creasing in most cases, finds some explanation in the fact 

 that the subject takes a grip upon the teacher quite apart 

 from her teaching capacity alone. The little laboratory 

 course in outdoor work which constitutes a main part of 

 the training appears to stimulate latent interests which fre- 

 quently quite forget and run past the schoolroom. Perhaps 

 that "latent interest" in outdoor things is the naturalistic 



