Nature Study
By W. J. Beal, Ph.D.
Professor of BOTANY AND FORESTRY IN THE MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL College

WHEN Goethe, the great German
poet, was spending half his time
in studying the metamorphosis of plants, his friends lamented the fact
and urged him to spend more time in the
flowery fields of literature and less in the
flowery fields of botany. Long after this,
when some enthusiast ventured to bring
flowering plants into the class room for
his students to examine, some professors
of the old school stoutly questioned the
propriety of such a proceeding. There
were no traditions recognizing such an
absurd practice. In the next step the
study of botany consisted mostly in
identifying and naming plants and in
learning their uses in medicine.

To-day botany has become a broad and
many-sided subject, attracting thousands
of devoted students in high school, college
and university. The value of the study
as a means of gaining information, discipline
and culture, and for giving pleasure
to the possessor every day in the year,
has long been recognized by most educators.
This applies to children as well as
to adults.

What has been said of botany pertains
with much the same force to certain portions
of zoology and geography, tho botany will always take first rank owing
to the abundance and neatness of the
specimens. The most sensitive person is
not shocked in handling or in dissecting
a violet or a geranium. To add a supposed
charm for children to the study of
these subjects, recently the term Nature
Study has come into use. Nature Study
is simply nothing more nor less than a
study of Nature pursued according to
correct methods.

To-day the editor of a magazine considers
himself fortunate if he can secure
a contribution from some one who can
prepare an accurate and vivid description
of the life history of some animal, or give
his experience in the forest. There is
much written concerning various attractive
phases of life in the country.
Amateur photographers help to record
many charming rural scenes. There
never was a time when people were so
eager for such things. Probably no one
in this country ever aroused greater enthusiasm in the study of natural history
than Louis Agassiz, who became a professor
at Harvard in 1848, fifty- four
years ago. Beginning soon after the arrival
of Agassiz in this country another
series of events have done much to make
natural history popular. Forty-five years
ago the Michigan State Agricultural College
opened its halls to students who
were supposed to desire to learn improved
methods of growing field crops,
fruits and live stock. Other colleges in
other States were soon opened. The
United States Department of Agriculture
was not organized till five years later; it
did not even exist in name, but existed as
an appendage to the Department of the
Interior. Its reports were the butt of
every learned man as well as those engaged
in farming. Passing over the long
struggles of forty-five years, we find the
United States Agricultural Department
now spends $6,000,000 per year in making
creditable explorations, experiments
and reports covering almost everything
that pertains to rural life. The agricultural
colleges also experiment and besides
teach many students. As an evidence
that these forces have revolutionized the
minds of people toward rural life, I
note the trend of a book of over 500
pages, published by Ginn & Co., under
the title "Nature Study and Life. " It is
apparently the best one of many books
touching this line of topics and was prepared
by Clifton F. Hodge, Ph.D., assistant
professor in Clark University, Massachusetts.

" Nature study is learning those things in
Nature that are best worth knowing, to the
end of doing those things that make
worth the living. "

The most remarkable feature of the
book is the economic or utilitarian trend
of the topics treated. He says:

"My point is that nature study, or elementary
science, for the public school ought to be
all for sure human good."

He recommends the study of children's
animals and pets, injurious insects, such
as the codling moth, plum curculio, cabbage
butterfly, mosquitoes. Hessian fly,
house fly, clothes moths, carpet beetles,
fleas, ants with their natural enemies and
artificial remedies. He asks for a list of
plants that each child cultivates at home;

he has a school exhibit of potted plants;
children prepare a flower calendar, learn
to recognize plants that are poisonous to
touch or when eaten; each makes a list
of all the weeds he knows; each brings
a pot of earth and finds what grows
therein; he estimates the number of seeds
produced per plant. They examine clover
seeds for the different seeds of weeds.
The children make a school garden, learn
the A, B, C of landscape gardening; they
smell, taste and handle and discuss which
is the best kind of fruit for different purposes; they get up a fruit show, in which
the children are the judges and writers
of reports. They germinate seeds and
grow plants in great variety, cross fertilize
flowers, notice fruit spurs, reproduce
plants by layers, grafting, budding, and
try their hands at pruning.

They observe bees while visiting flowers, and learn the results to bee and plant.
Frank Benton is quoted. While a student
at Michigan Agricultural College he
showed himself a genius in bee culture,
tho he failed to domesticate the bumble
bee and induce her to adopt the artificial
hive system as all good bees should. Mr.
Hodge placed a nucleus of a hive
of bees in the school room or
near it for observation. Pupils note
the relative peculiarities and value
of different races of bees. They observe
ichneumon flies as they hunt for larvae
in which to deposit their own eggs and
thus serve the lover of plants a good turn.
Lady beetles, lion beetles, tiger beetles,
dragon flies, damsel flies, caddis flies,
butterflies, cheese flies, and many others
are liable to be observed and grown under
under the eyes of young school children.

The aquarium is indispensable and in
it young frogs and toads and newts are
reared and watched from the egg to the
young hopping or crawling animal. The
way a toad behaves is discovered, and on
be one of the most important animals we
the side of public economy it is found to
have. Of course our native birds cannot
be overlooked by eager children
studying nature. The whole topic is
brimfull of interest awaiting watchful
eyes of boys and girls in and out of
school. The nests, the eggs, the food, the
likes and dislikes of every species, are
books filled with good stories from cover
to cover. Taming and feeding of birds
is attempted, noting the kind and amount

2180
of food a young bird consumes in one
day.

Elementary forestry claims attention,
the kinds of trees, the modes of distinguishing
each species, the growing of the seeds, their modes of distribution,
their care, their enemies and diseases,
their uses.

Earth worms, hair worms, slugs and
snails are found, fed and studied. As
tho these were not enough to occupy the
busy children, Mr. Hodge gives plans
for lessons on ferns, mosses, liverwort,
lichens, algae and (would you believe it?)
on mushrooms, yeasts and bacteria.

Delos Fall, now Superintendent of
Public Instruction for Michigan, believes
that teachers of agricultural colleges
should work with others in conducting
teachers' institutes, and there train them
for work in nature study. He believes
this college, where there are orchards,
ornamental trees, green houses, and a
botanic garden, should provide courses
for training teachers. If Mr. Hodge's
plan is the right one, there can be little
doubt that Superintendent Fall's suggestions
are also correct.

The above is a mere enumeration of
some of the topics proposed for study by
children, as outlined by Mr. Hodge. That
such courses are profitable when well
taught I have not the remotest doubt;
that they have been well taught by Mr.
Hodge is the testimony of President Hall,
but it would be the height of indiscretion
for more than one school teacher in ten
thousand to attempt to teach more than
one-tenth of the variety of work he has
compassed within 500 pages. I have
been a teacher of botany for nearly forty
years, and during eleven of that period a
teacher of horticulture also. I have
taught many students in all these years,
but I fear there are very few of them
who could be safely trusted to train
young pupils in more than half the topics
enumerated by Mr. Hodge.

If teachers could only keep their
mouths shut to most of the numerous
questions asked by eager children more
of them would succeed; but they won't
do that. Most people delight to answer
questions; it displays their wisdom; it
is a satisfaction to grant favors of this
kind, but when they attempt to answer
fifty or more questions a day concerning
such a great variety of things, many of
the answers will be mere guesses, and
will do much more harm than good. Caution, care, patience, reticence are needed
by teachers of nature.

It will be very much better, especially
till experience is gained, to compass a
small or limited field, including topics
only, which have previously been thoroughly
studied by the teacher.

In any case great tact is required to
lead the children on, keep them interested
and encourage them to make discoveries
original with them. Teachers must not
pretend to know all nature; if they do
they are mere pretenders, for no one
knows half there is to be learned about
most common plants or animals. There
is great need of more good teachers for
this work and better pay will produce
them in time.

Darwin was a patient observer, and
during his day, if not to this day, he knew
more about the pollination of orchids
than any other person, and yet in 1862
he wrote:
“The more I study nature the more I become
impressed with ever-increasing force with
the conclusion that the contrivance and beautiful
adaptations transcend in an incomparable
degree the contrivances and adaptations which
the most fertile imagination of the most
imaginative man could suggest with unlimited
time at his disposal."

Twenty-one years ago, when C. W.
Garfield was secretary, the Michigan
Horticultural Society made a strenuous
effort to induce teachers of rural schools
to aid the pupils to plant and care for
flower gardens. Directions were printed
and distributed with a gift of seeds to
districts willing to undertake the experiment.
Here were some of the chief difficulties:  1. Very few of the teachers knew
anything about the details of managing
flowers and they did not care to undertake
any such work. 2. Most of the
schools changed teachers once a year, or
oftener, which would be fatal to carrying
out any plan from year to year. 3. Few
of the teachers made any pretense of
teaching such subjects in their schools.
4. In many cases, a vacation occurred at
the time when the land should be prepared
and planted, and another vacation
followed a summer term before many of
the plants had completed their growth
for the year.

In comparatively few instances was
the school garden reported a success, but
in nearly all cases the results did not
seem to warrant the outlay of energy and
worry of the members of the Horticultural
Society. The project was soon abandoned.

A few years ago the State of New
York made a liberal appropriation for the
introduction of the elements of agriculture
or horticulture in the district schools.
The work was vigorously pushed in the
most favorable regions of the State with
partial success, but soon abandoned, because
the result did not warrant the effort
necessary to success. More recently
one of the leaders of this work said in a
public address:

“We have introduced agriculture into the
common schools, but we call it by another
name, viz., Nature Study. The best results
of this effort were shown in schools of towns
and cities, because there were to be found the
teachers best qualified for such work."
Starting with the city schools, it is expected
in time to work down to the country
schools, provided they are remodeled
by uniting a number of small schools to
make one good, strong, graded school out
of several weak ones. The great importance
of the study of nature in schools
has become too well established to permit
the interest to die out. With continued
effort it cannot be long until no school
can be called good where this subject
doesn't occupy a prominent place in the
schedule.

Thirty years ago a small volume was
prepared by Asa Gray, entitled " How
Plants Behave." It is still considered an
excellent book for persons who are teaching
botany in common or in graded
schools. The headings of the chapters
are: " How Plants Move, Climb and
Take Positions; " "How Plants Employ
Insects to Work for Them; How Certain
Plants Capture Insects."

For some years past Mrs. J. M. Arms
Sheldon has had charge of nature study
in the schools of Boston, Mass. I quote
a portion of what she prepared at my request
:
" Nature study is simply the study of nature, not the study of books. It is a course
of nature lessons especially adapted for elementary
schools. Minerals, rocks, plants and
animals are the necessary materials for such
lessons. The method of study may be expressed

in three words, observation, comparison, inference.
The child must be made to see the object he looks at, and to this end he
tries to draw it and to describe it in writing.
"If the course in nature study for the
school room has been wisely planned the specimens chosen can be compared so that the children
are able to pass from the observational
lessons to comparative, and, finally, to inferential
work. For instance, if a starfish and sea urchin
are compared; a clam shell and an
oyster shell; a lobster and a crab; a grasshopper
and a beetle; a butterfly and a bee,
excellent results follow, provided always that
the problems set for the children to work out
are within their comprehension. If, on the
other hand, the lessons are given in the following
order: A robin, a clam, a grasshopper,
a starfish, a piece of coral, it is obvious that
little good comparative and less inferential
work can be done. Comparative work is mental
training, which, combined with the observational
training already spoken of, gives
a certain degree of mental power. This power
gained in the early years increases with continued
effort. Fortunately, this work is recognized
as one of the potent agencies in producing
efficient men and women equipped for a
life work that shall make for the betterment
and enlightenment of humanity."

Don't tell pupils much, but induce them
to do the work. Don't give lectures and
tell stories about such things nor permit
others to come in and do so. Don't ask a
lot of direct questions, inferring the nature
of the answer. Don't waste energy
in giving all sorts of namby pamby of
baby names of things to arouse the fancy
of pupils, such as "Baby beech leaves.
half awake.” Don't be afraid of introducing now and then a technical word when needed, as children can learn them more easily than most older people; it won't hurt them and they like it.

Don't tell them just what to look for, but give only a very few broad hints of things, and not even these till the pupils have all made an earnest effort. Don't pretend to know very much. Don't give them books or show pictures with the expectation that you are teaching pupils to see.
Do study the whole of a thing instead of a piece of it whenever practicable, and let each have a specimen.
The teacher can't know too much about a thing that she has actually studied. Be very careful not to make a misstatement.
Do remember that living plants or animals live, move, grow, and reproduce their kind and are more interesting than inanimate objects. A climbing vine, the opening and closing of leaflets, the behavior of insects while seeking food, the effect of light on plants, the way plants travel, the way they protect themselves,
are excellent topics here named in a wholesale way.

Original research is the thing to strive for. By all devices do strive to secure the results of the combined observations of all members of the class before you let them know your own views on the subject, and even then parts of the work may be left with pupils for further investigation.

In preparing teachers require them to do considerable real good work and not spend very much time on advice about methods. And, finally, secure and retain competent teachers, and all the rest will follow in nature study; without such teachers little good can be accomplished.
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MICH.