CHAPTER IV 

 plan for insect study 



Methods ; Materials ; Insect Collections 



Teachers ordinarily feel quite at a loss where to 

 begin or what to do with insects, but in no other sub- 

 ject should they feel more at their ease. The trouble 

 has been that the field is so boundless and the books 

 so technical that it has seemed impossible to bring it 

 into any fruitful relation to elementary teaching. But 

 leaving all the anatomy, the minutise of structure and 

 classification for the specialists, and taking the com- 

 mon forms alive and at their work, no study furnishes 

 more fascinating or valuable lessons. We shall have 

 daily to say " I don't know," but so do the profes- 

 sors of entomology who have done nothing but study 

 insects all their lives ; or, since some teachers have not 

 yet learned the value of saying " I don't know," let them 

 play ball with the questions. 



In an elementary course the aim should be to learn 

 what every one ought to know about a few of the most 

 important insects, and, for this purpose, we may study 

 them in the following groups : 



1. Insects of the household. 3. Insects of field and forest. 



2. Insects of the garden. 4. Beneficial insects. 



5. Insects beautiful and interesting. 

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