322 



NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



esses common to all forms, that the teacher needs to be on 

 terms of comfortable familiarity. 



The prevalence among grade teachers of misconceptions 

 as to certain of these fundamentals is striking. Inasmuch, 

 however, as grade teachers are being called upon more and 

 more to teach about plants and animals, and few have op- 

 portunity to take special courses in preparation therefor, 

 it becomes imperative to provide, if possible, some short 

 cut to an adequate conception of these matters. Other- 

 wise the teaching will be either superficial or wrong. 



A few examples may serve to make the point of the 

 preceding paragraph more clear. The writer finds that 

 far more than half of some hundreds of country teachers 

 who have been tested were firmly convinced that plants 

 "breathe carbon dioxide" while animals "breathe oxygen," 

 and that leaves are to be regarded as the lungs of plants. 

 Bees are said to fertilize clover, the processes of fertiliza- 

 tion and pollination being in no sense distinguished. The 

 conception that "food burns in the body" appears to be 

 very general, while rare indeed is the teacher who is not 

 quite clear that air, sunlight, and water serve plants as food, 

 just as proteids, fats, and carbohydrates serve animals. 

 The idea that organs or the rudiments of them must have 

 preceded the use of them for some definite purpose is re- 

 ceived in teachers' classes as novel and diverting. Firmly 

 intrenched is the idea that everything in nature already has 

 its use or else cannot be. Animate things are conceived of 

 and interpreted like the inanimate creations of man; like 

 machines into which each cunning part has been fitted to 

 fulfil a certain definite function. On the other hand, with 

 naive inconsistency, there is general confidence that Bur- 



