THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURE STUDY 55 



honest. But the majority will respond and will presently 

 stand any test of independent, honest observation, feeling 

 free to contradict book, teacher, or any other authority 

 that does not agree with their own observations. This is 

 really the ideal result; but it is rather surprising to find 

 that the "spirit of contradiction" distresses many teachers 

 and angers some. Honest contradiction based on honest 

 observation means an alert, independent mind, and when 

 such a result is reached in the case of any pupil, then teacher 

 and pupil may enter into comradeship in observation, and 

 the further progress of both is assured. 



Comparison of Results. — This deserves special atten- 

 tion. It ties up the bundle of observations in such a way 

 that they lead to a much larger outlook and the intellectual 

 result is of the greatest importance. In fact, observations 

 conducted in accordance with all the previous suggestions 

 seem to end somewhat blindly without the culminating 

 process of comparison. It would resemble reading a story 

 so as to become acquainted with the characters and even 

 interested in them and in the dramatic situations, and then 

 omitting the concluding pages that record the final results 

 . and give meaning to all that has been done. It would 

 resemble the tracing of a series of converging lines and 

 stopping before they meet at some point. The intellectual- 

 results obtained from the process of comparison follow 

 one another in a series so swift that one seems to compress 

 into a brief effort more results than have been obtained 

 from everything that has gone before. This point needs 

 somewhat close analysis to see what a rich content of results 

 comparison contains. 



Let us suppose that various plants or animals have been 



