NOTES AND LITERATURE. 
NATURE STUDY. 
Nature Study.'— Two little text books on nature study, designed 
for use in the lower grammar school grades, give evidence of the 
progress which has been made during the last decade in laying the 
foundation for the teaching of the natural sciences. Too often in 
our public and private schools a teacher is expected to give her 
pupils *nature work," whether she herself is interested in the sub- 
ject or trained for it. To such, if they have the gift of teaching, 
these books should prove helpful. Dr. Overton's in particular can- 
not fail to be stimulating to both teacher and pupil. It contains a 
series of thirty-two lessons on various simple phenomena of plant 
and insect life. Carter’s Nature Study with Common Things is 
intended especially for city schools. It contains seventeen lessons 
on material taken exclusively from plant life, either the fruit or that 
part of the plant in which nutriment is stored. In the hands of an 
unskilful teacher this course could easily become a burden to the 
young pupil, inasmuch as it is limited to a field usually uninter- 
esting to children. ‘The following quotation from Dr. Overton’s 
preface brings out one point frequently overlooked in a discussion 
of nature study; the italics are our own. " The object of nature 
study," says Dr. Overton, *is not so much to get present knowledge 
as to develop the power and love of observation by which knowledge 
may be gained in after life." 

RH. 
1 Overton, Frank. Assisted by Mary E. Hill. Nature Study. A Pupils Text- 
illus. 
book. New York, American Book Company, 1905. 142 
Nature Study with Common Things. An Elementary Labo. 
Carter, M. H. ; 
ratory Manual. New York, American Book Company, 1904. 150 pp. illus. 
601 
