130 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [7 :5— May, 1911 



and many normal schools, can give but four or five single periods 

 a week to any science, or must omit science from their course 

 of study. (3) As once suggested by Professor Thorndike, one of 

 the great contributions of science to secondary education is the 

 principle of verification. This can often be accomplished better 

 by careful observation of a preparation that is good than of one 

 that is spoiled in the making. (4) An excessive amount of time 

 spent in "dissection" (and also in drawing) simply crowds out 

 the proper consideration of many important topics. (5) The 

 kind of dexterity acquired by high school pupils making their 

 own preparations is not the kind needed in after life so much as 

 the kind of dexterity acquired in the manual and domestic arts, 

 and these lines of endeavor should have the benefit of any time 

 that can be spared. There cannot be enough skill gained in the 

 use of dissecting instruments to be of appreciable benefit even to 

 a prospective surgeon, and he must get his special training else- 

 where. 



The best sanction for the manipulation of the materials is the 

 probability that the student in college or normal school may have 

 some occasion himself to prepare materials in his own future 

 work. Even such persons as these always may and often must 

 get this special training in teachers' courses in our summer 

 schools. 



A very regrettable error appeared in the last (April, 191 1) 

 number of the Nature-Study Review. The article, "Studies of 

 Aquatic Insects", which should have been credited to Gilbert H. 

 Trafton, Clifton, N. J., was by mistake placed under the name of 

 L. S. Hawkins, Cortland, N. Y. 



