56 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [16:2— Feb., 1920 



Second, the ideals that a nature-study teacher should have in his 

 work with the individual child, are more interesting probably, 

 because they deal with the child himself. 



It is common knowledge that people do not see what they look at. 

 It is not necessary to dilate upon what the average person loses in 

 walking to school or to business. 



It is amusing to ask a class how a robin moves, when he does not fly. 

 He always hops at first. Then some more observing member of the 

 class will say that he runs. How does the sparrow move when he 

 does not fly? The first reply is that the sparrow also runs when he 

 walks. Ask a child to draw a dandelion leaf. There will be leaves 

 on the board resembling everything from a possible maple leaf to 

 a willow. 



It becomes a great game to catch some one who does not know 

 what something in his back yard looks like. Incidentally this 

 develops an interest in one's back yard. The game becomes con- 

 tagious as the discoveries are brought to mother and daddy. 



It is also common knowledge that the majority of our children 

 do not go to school beyond the 8th grade. It is also true that the 

 majority do not go beyond the bound of their own county during 

 their life time. 



A child leaving school at the eighth grade does not read easily 

 enough, or know enough about books, to spend his spare time 

 reading. 



The laboring class is demanding a six hour day and less produc- 

 tion per hour. Suppose a laboring man works six hours, sleep nine 

 hours, what is he going to do with the other nine hours of the 

 twenty-four ? 



If he has been taught a love for the growing things in his back 

 yard. If he has learned to be interested in the bulletins of his 

 state and country, which he can have for a postage stamp, he will 

 not spend so much time at the movies and in the cigar stores. In 

 fostering in his pupils a love for flowers, vegetables, live stock and 

 an interest in insects a nature-study teacher has developed in the 

 child a love for his soil and for the country that soil represents. 



With the pernicious owners of automobiles and the low grade 

 movie there has arisen a moral problem among boys and girls that 

 did not exist ten years ago. Nature-study is not a panacea. But 

 nature teaches lessons of morality. Nature shows that a life 

 adapting itself to the good of all concerned and to its environment. 



