Nature study

“ A child might learn a myriad of things in the woods and gain much insight into nature's ways without making any clear distinction between botany, zoology, and geology. Herein is also the proof that text-books are needed as a guide in nature's labyrinth. If the frequency and intimacy of mutual relations are any proof of unity, the natural sciences are a unit and have a right to be called by one name, nature study. ”

“ Scientific classification is very important, but the attempt to make it a leading aim in teaching children is a mistake.
We may add that nature study is felt by all to offer abundant scope to the exercise of the esthetic faculty. There is great variety of beauty and gracefulness in natural forms in plant and animal; the rich or delicate coloring of the clouds, of birds, of insects, and of plants, gives constant pleasure. Then there are grand and impressive scenery and phenomena in nature, and melody and harmony in nature's voices. ”

“ The aim of Nature-Study, as thus laid down, is not primarily the acquisition of the facts of natural history: it is rather a training in methods of open-eyed, close, and accurate observation, especially of familiar animals and plants, which shall teach the student to see what he looks at, and to think about what he sees. ”

“ Suggestions for nature-study must necessarily be more or less general. Nature-study should be a matter of observation on the part of the pupils. The teacher's part is to indicate points for observation and not to tell what is to be seen. ”

“ It seems almost invidious to name a few out of the many authors who have written not merely technical books for study, but popular works on natural science, to be read on sea-shore and road-side, on a bench in the garden, or lying under orchard trees, or sitting in the woods with a brook purling at our feet. ”

“ The claims of Nature Study to an educative value are based not upon a desire to displace conventional education, but to supplement it, and to lay a foundation for subsequent reading. Constant exercise of the senses strengthens these sources of information and develops alertness, and at the same time the child is kept on familiar ground—the world of realities. It is for these reasons that Nature Study is frequently defined as "The Natural Method of Study". ”

“ Nature-study, as a process, is seeing the things that one looks at, and the drawing of proper conclusions from what one sees. Its purpose is to educate the child in terms of his environment, to the end that his life may be fuller and richer. Nature-study is not the study of a science, as of botany, entomology, geology, and the like. ”

“ Nature Study involves so many ingenious little deductions, that the reasoning powers are almost constantly employed, and intelligence grows proportionately. The child’s powers of observation are stimulated, and his memory is cultivated in the way most pleasing to his inquiring nature. By dissecting seeds, bulbs, buds, and flowers, his hand is trained, and methods expeditious and exact are inculcated. ”

“ First. How may nature study be broadened by the use of literature?
Second. How may the study of nature help in the appreciation of literature?
I. In trying to answer the first question we will present first a classified list of selections from Journeys Through Bookland which are closely related to the study of nature and indicate briefly how they may be used.
A. Seven Long Selections.
In the first place, there are long selections in which there are many anecdotes and incidents which are usable in nature study. ”

“ Indeed, such nature-study will give a sure foundation for appreciating and comprehending the larger questions in natural science, and it will make an almost perfect preparation for taking part in or for appreciating the great surveys of a state or a country. ”

“ But even if the term nature-study ceases at the fifth or sixth grade, the nature-study method will persist throughout the school course,—the method of dealing first-hand and in their natural setting with objects, phenomena and affairs, and of proceeding from the simple and undissected to the complex and remote. ”

“ Now, therefore, I come again to my thesis,—to the statement that the end and purpose of nature-study is to educate the young mind by means of the subjects within its own sphere, by appealing to its own sympathetic interest in them, in order that the person's life may be sweeter, deeper, and more resourceful. ”

“ Nature Study in its broadest application includes all of the natural sciences, such as zoology, botany, geology, meteorology, and astronomy. So, there are many fascinating fields for study and enjoyment, and it does not matter much where we begin, whether it be Wild Flowers, Trees, Birds, Butterflies, or Stars. ”

“ The study of nature in its details presents itself to the mind in a twofold aspect—as historical and as philosophical. The first of these gives rise to a General Physiography or description of nature, which we commonly call Natural History as applied to each of the three great divisions designated as the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. ”

“ The sciences based upon this objective study of Nature are denominated Natural Sciences; and because they lisp the first syllables of Nature's message to man, they should be his primary teachers. It is by their aid that the universal message of God to man must be read. They form, as it were, a public highway leading from Nature to God. ”

“ Nature must be studied in detail, and it is the wonderful variety of the species of a group, their complicated relations and their endless modification of form, size and colours, which constitute the pre-eminent charm of the entomologist's study. ”

“ There is not a fragment of the organism of this humble animal, whose study would not lead us into regions of thought as large as those which I have briefly opened up to you; but what I have been saying, I trust, has not only enabled you to form a conception of the scope and purport of zoology, but has given you an imperfect example of the manner in which, in my opinion, that science, or indeed any physical science, may be best taught. ”

“ For surely the study of natural history means only the study of plants and animals themselves, which, at the moment of using the words “Natural History,” we assume to be the most important part of nature. ”

“ Published in co-operation with The American Museum of Natural History by Doubleday Anchor Books, this series introduces the student and the general reader to the study of man—his origins, his nature, and his environment—and to the whole natural world, from sub-microscopic life to the universe at large. ”

“ So many of the beautiful and inspiring things in literature are concerning some phase of nature, that nature-study must increase the appreciation of the literature; and the noble thoughts in the literature will help the pupils to look for and appreciate the finer things in nature. ”

“ Enthusiasts have made the study of nature the basis of all school work, the correlating force in all studies. Such an idea has merit in it, for it is certain that lessons begun in the observation of living things and the phenomena of nature speedily ramify into language, reading, geography, history, and even mathematics. ”

“ Every lesson herein set down has, during the author’s many years’ experience in teaching Nature Study, been taught by observation and practice again and again; and each time with satisfactory result. The materials required for the lessons are within everybody’s reach.
There is nothing that appeals to the heart of the ordinary child like living things, be they animal or vegetable, and there is no branch of education at the present day that bears, in the young mind, such excellent fruit as the study of the simple, living things around us. ”

“ Thus we have the term ‘natural history’ and the French term ‘les sciences naturelles’ limited to the study of the more immediate and concrete forms of animals, plants, and crystals. There is some justification for separating the conception of Nature as specially concerned in the production and maintenance of living things from that larger Nature which embraces, together with this small but deeply significant area, the whole expanse of the heavens in the one direction and Man himself in the other. ”

“ They deal, each of them, with realms of Nature. Geology is, literally, the natural history of soils and lands; chemistry the natural history of compounds, organic and inorganic; meteorology the natural history of climates; astronomy the natural history of planetary and solar bodies. And more, you cannot now study deeply any branch of what is popularly called Natural History—that is, plants and animals—without finding it necessary to learn something, and more and more as you go deeper, of those very sciences. ”

“ Nature study has recently been introduced into schools and it is a very excellent way to have the interesting things pointed out to us until our eyes are trained to see for ourselves. The usual methods of nature study may be roughly divided into, 1. ”

“ Would you create for yourself by the study of nature a source of enjoyment equally pure and inexhaustible, adopt a method of classification for your own use, and, to facilitate you in the task, take for your types those plants which are at once the commonest and most characteristic of each season. ”

“ If we can open wide the gates of “the fairy-land of science,”—if we can bring the child near to the heart of nature,—if we can absorb his hours of leisure, and many of his hours of brain-work, in the study of nature out of doors, we shall have done much toward making him robust in body, sound in mind, cheerful of disposition, and useful in the future. ”

“ On this living trunk of nature our own life is grafted; animals come into existence, and among animals the human species. Each of us, as he comes into the world, finds this nature, developed, abundant, diversified in millions of forms, traversed by innumerable forces, organised up to the most highly developed structures, 66 man included. We find this nature, and we begin to study it. ”

“ If a course of nature studies is begun in the first grade and carried systematically through all the years up to the eighth grade, is it not reasonable to suppose that real insight into nature, based on observation taken at first hand, may be reached? It will involve a study of living plants and animals, minerals, physical apparatus and devices, chemical experiments, the making of collections, regular excursions for the observation of the neighboring fields, forests, and streams, and the working over of these and other concrete experiences from all sources through skillful class teaching. ”

“ If these classifications are not mere inventions, if they are not an attempt to classify for our own convenience the objects we study, then they are thoughts which, whether we detect them or not, are expressed in Nature,—then Nature is the work of thought, the production of intelligence carried out according to plan, therefore premeditated,—and in our study of natural objects we are approaching the thoughts of the Creator, reading His conceptions, interpreting a system that is His and not ours. ”

“ We shall endeavour to show that the modes of employment of the thoughts to which the well conducted study of nature gives rise, do tend, in all their forms, to produce or strengthen this impression on the mind; and that such an impression, and no other, is consistent with the widest views and most comprehensive aspects of nature and of philosophy, which our Natural Philosophy opens to us. ”

“ For this purpose, the study of natural history, as recording the various facts respecting the atmosphere, the waters, the earth, and animated beings, combined with the study of natural philosophy and astronomy, as explaining the causes of the phenomena of nature, will have a happy tendency to eradicate from the mind superstitious and false notions, and at the same time will present to view objects of delightful contemplation. ”

“ It is this incessant revision of the facts, in order to see if they accord with the assumed rule or law, which has given modern science the sound footing that it lacked in earlier days, and which has permitted our learning to go on step by step in a safe way up the heights to which it has climbed. All explanations of Nature begin with the work of the imagination. ”

“ It is as illustrations of remarkable development of instinctive powers, and of wonderful correlation of structure and habit, that we would have the reader study these creatures. The teacher of nature-study can find no more available or more fertile field from which to take subjects for interesting children in the world about us. ”

“ Undoubtedly one of the most important educative values that can be claimed for Nature Study is its influence in training the pupil to appreciate natural objects and phenomena. This implies the widening and enriching of human interests through nurturing the innate tendency of the child to love the fields and woods and birds ”

“ Above all, the student should get into the habit of asking the reasons for the differences and resemblances which he notices in his nature-study. To learn what these reasons are he must observe closely, think carefully, and then make experiments to test the accuracy of his conclusions. ”

“ It is true that geography, geology, physiography, mineralogy, botany and zoology must each contribute their share toward the condition of intelligence which will enable you to realize appreciation of Nature's amazing earth, but the share of each is so small that the problem will be solved, not by exhaustive study, but by the selection of essential parts. Two or three popular books which interpret natural science in perspective should pleasurably accomplish your purpose. ”

“ He will thus have a standard by which he can measure and make familiar the body of learning concerning Nature which he may find in books. From printed pages alone, however well they be written, he can never hope to catch the spirit that animates the real inquirer, the true lover of Nature. ”

“ This, for our present purposes, is the best view of the present condition of organic nature which I can lay before you: it gives you the great outlines of a vast picture, which you must fill up by your own study. ”