The Teaching of Nature-Study 



19 



of the locusts' invasion mentioned in the Bible, and the stars which 

 witnessed our creation and of which Job sang and the ancients wrote, 

 shine over our heads every night. 



But the trees, through the lengthy span of their lives, cover more history 

 individually, than do other organisms . In glancing across the wood-covered 

 hills of New York one often sees there, far above the other trees, the 

 gaunt crowns of old white pines. Such trees belonged to the forest 

 primeval and may have attained the age of two centuries; the}' stand 

 there looking out over the world, relics of another age when America be- 

 longed to the red man, and the bear and the panther played or fought 

 beneath them. The cedars live longer than do the pines and the great 

 scarlet oak may have attained the age of four centuries before it yields 

 to fate. 



Perhaps in no other way may the attention of the pupil be turned so 

 naturally to past events, as through the thought that the life of such a tree 

 has spanned so much of human history. The life history of one of these 

 ancient trees should be made the center of local history; let the pupils 

 find when the town was first settled by the whites and where they came 

 from and how large the tree was then. What Indian tribes roamed the 

 woods before that and what animals were comm.on in the forest when this 

 tree was a sapling? Thus may be brought out the chief events in the 

 history of the county and township, when they were established and for 

 whom or what they were named; and a comparison of the present 

 industries may be made with those of a hundred years ago. 



THE CORRELATION OF NATURE-STUDY WITH ARITHMETIC 



HE arithmetical problems presented by nature-study 

 are many; some of them are simple and some of 

 them are complicated, and all of them are illumin- 

 ing. Seed distribution especially lends itself to 

 computation; a milkweed pod contains 140 seeds; 

 there are five such pods on one plant, each milkweed 

 plant requires at least one square foot of ground to 

 grow on; how much ground would be required to 

 grow all of the seeds from this one plant? Or, count 

 the seeds in one dandelion head, multiply by the 

 number of flower heads on the plant and estimate 

 how many plants can grow on a square foot, then 

 ask a boy how long it would take for one dandelion 

 plant to cover his father's farm with its progeny; or 

 count the blossoms on one branch of an apple tree, 

 later count the ripened fruit; what percentage of blossoms matured in- 

 to fruit? Measuring trees, their height and thickness and computing the 

 lumber they will make combines arithmetic and geometry, and so on ad 

 infinitum. 



As a matter of fact, the teacher will find in almost every nature lesson 

 an arithmetic lesson ; and when arithmetic is used in this work, it should 

 be vital and inherent and not "tacked on;" the pupils should be really 

 interested in the answers to their problems; and as with all correlation, 

 the success of it depends upon the genius of the teacher. 



