•d INTRODUCTORY. 



Where so much that seems of nearly equal value for training is 

 at hand, the teacher will choose the lines of investigation that 

 promise the largest returns in the usefulness of the knowledge 

 acquired. 



Use and Abuse of Pictures. — It is very important to dis- 

 tinguish between a nature-study lesson and an information lesson 

 about an object in nature. It is better that the learner should be 

 directed in the way to find out the fact sought than that he should 

 be told it. The child who says to his teacher or fellow pupil, 

 " Please don't tell me yet, I wish to try to find out for myself," has 

 likely acquired the right spirit. Another evidence of the right 

 mental attitude is given when the learner prefers to examine the 

 real object rather than a picture of it. The picture is an expres- 

 sion of some other person's study of the object. Usually it is 

 like the answer to the problem in arithmetic, it should not be 

 seen until the investigation is concluded. In the nature-study 

 lesson, a picture may be of use to a child who needs assistance in 

 the art of expressing a conception obtained by his own researches. 

 But in the mere information lesson the child seeks to be told the 

 facts and is indifferent whether he obtains them from teacher, 

 book or picture. The pictures and diagrams in this book are 

 intended to assist in defining technical terms or suggesting points in 

 the method of expression, but all pictures have been excluded that 

 might stand between the child and the object of his investigation. 



Nature-Study, Moral and Esthetic. — Nature -study les- 

 sons properly conducted, not only train the observing and reasoning 

 powers, but also increase capacity and desire for enjoyment and 

 enrich and ennoble the sympathies. Observation of the bird, the 

 insect, and the reptile, can hardly fail to make the observer more 

 careful of, and sympathetic with, that wonderful life and form 

 which God has given his creatures, so easily destroyed, but impos- 

 sible to restore. 



The charming grace of character called humility is surely cultivated 

 by the study of nature. The more one learns, not alone of stars 

 and mountains and trees, but even of the apparently insignificant 

 things like the pebble, the grass, and the worm, the more he 

 realizes how limited man's knowledge is. 



