pathy for the teachers who have tried under such adverse conditions to bring to the hearts of their children any touch whatsoever of the Nature, Old Nurse.

Principles of education remain the same for city or country, however different the details of applying them may be. It often seems that we have been slow to realize that no education amounts to much unless it touches the springs of spontaneous activity in the child unless it awakens the will and it starts him to doing something worth while from his own initiative. My own contributions to the subject have had for the chief object the application of this principle of self activity to nature study; and the prime criterion with which I would test every lesson is its power to develop the highest type of spontaneous activity. possible for the individual child. Since life, too, in order to amount to anything must be a continuous growth by consecutive efforts, we must plan the course so that it shall ever lead the child by natural steps to something better ahead. To start activity in a certain direction in one lesson, break it off and start it in another direction in the next, and so on, without attaining some definite result which the child can appreciate as worthy of his efforts, is the most effective way to disintegrate and paralyze the will.

In my plans of nature study the welfare of the teacher has always held a prominent place. For the teacher, too, fragmentary and discontinuous nature study is even more difficult and discouraging than for the child. The daily question as the period for nature study comes around, must be: "What can I find to interest the children to-day?" So the teacher is obliged to pump up interest

daily, and too often out of a dry well and with a tired hand. The difference between perfunctory nature study of this sort and that which flows from the spontaneous interests and activities of the children, is a good deal like the difference between pumping water by hand and watching it flow from a living spring.

Happily the differentiation of nature study from elementary science is fast clearing up. There is no definite. amount of information that we are in duty bound to teach to the child in the nature study lessons, and which we feel that we must impart in the orderly manner of a scientific discipline. Science and the scientific, method have been very recent developments compared with the whole period of human history. Moreover, they have grown out of relations to nature that it took thousands of years to mature. No matter what we may think about the theory that the child repeats in his own development, the history of the race, the fact remains that we must. in a mere common sense view of education, take time to lay the natural foundations for scientific study. I mean this in the broadest sense as applied to a truly scientific attitude of mind in dealing with the problems of everyday life rather than to the technical scientific study of the schools. The child needs-just as the race needed to form the heart to heart acquaintance with nature; to play with Her and work with Her, to be fed mentally as he is physically by learn-` ing her varied aspects—in the perfectly natural and and informal manner adapted to childhood.

Why is it that it is a delight to learn some things and a tiresome bore to learn others? Do you reply: "What is distasteful to one may be pleasant

to another?" This is true when we come to specialized studies, and in these we can explain the differences in mental attitude of a comparatively long period of special education or adaptation toward the preferred subject. "Yes," you add, "but even with young children these different likes and dislikes appear. One likes horses, another dogs, another birds, another machines, and so on." This is undoubtedly true. Still I am convinced that if we dig down deep enough toward the fundamental and. universal human interests in nature, we shall find common ground for lessons that shall be perennially interesting and delightful not only for the children but for teachers as well. Furthermore, such differences in proclivity or taste as may outcrop, we shall wish to foster in developing the active method of nature study in order to afford all the spice of variety we can get and give opportunity for each child to distinguish himself in his preferred lines of work. When followed out in this way my experience bears me out in saying that we may have in our daily lesson in nature study a period of genuine refreshment for both teacher and pupils, a period to be looked forward to and honestly enjoyed by all alike and more deeply educative for the delight there is in it.

The dawn of active education is patent to all in the practical applications which Herbart's doctrine of apperception and Froebel's of self activity are finding in our schools; in the rapid extension of the kindergarten and manual training and in the prominence given to original research in our universities. As Dr. Burnham puts it: "The great maxim of modern reform in education is the activity of the pupil instead of the didac

tics of the teacher. There are but two methods of instruction as regards the pupil, the active and the passive; as regards the teacher, the method of demonstration and the method of suggestion. The active method of the kindergarten and the university should be adopted in all grades".

Infants learn by the active method, and make progress with wonderful rapidity and with infinite delight despite the bumps before school age is reached. This is often called the happiest period of life, and is this not, because the world is fresh and new and the child can learn it in his own way? Men learn all they really know by the active method, by doing things and trying to do things, and the work is drudgery or pleasure according to the amount of original genius each is able to put into it. No one can offer any adequate reason for a long period of passive instruction interposed between infancy and manhood the less so when we consider the normal child's passion for activity, so easy to control by suggestion and so impossible to repress.

In proportion as education becomes active, nature study must take a prominent place in the course. What else is there for the whole child to work actively with except the phenomena of nature, responses to which have constituted the chief education of living beings from the protozoa up. We could wish for nature study nothing higher than Froebel's idea of education "The system of rules which may guide intelligent beings to the apprehension of their life-work and to the accomplishment of their destiny." As Superintendent Zech says, describing what he saw in Froebel's school: "Self activity of the mind is the first law of instruction; and this so well

adapted to the child and his needs that he learns as eagerly as he plays. What the pupils learn is not a shapeless mass, but has form and life, and is, if at all possible, immediately applied in life."

If you now ask for practical illustrations of the active method of nature study, I can only say that I have done my best to write a book full of them in my Nature Study and Life. Many of its suggestions, of course, could not be carried out in the large city. To take the children to a museum or park and show them the trees and flowers and animals, is to follow essentially the method of demonstration. The active method enters to only a slight degree, because the pupils have nothing to do themselves except to passively look on. In fact their passion to do must be almost wholly repressed. They must not feed the animals, play with them, or climb trees or touch flowers or walk on the grass. I once heard a New York father describing how fortunately his children were located where they could visit Central Park daily, and in the midst of his remarks his little boy burst out with, "I HATE the old Park." And from the side of a child's natural impulses, I can well see how nowhere else would temptation be so irresistible and restraint so severe. On the other hand, we have in Bird Lore some delightful accounts of New York children taming the chicadees in Central Park to feed from their hands. These children evidently enjoyed the Park hugely, and the secret of this difference is simply that they had found something to do-a little thing to be sure, but vitally related to the child's heart. Our problem is to find as many things as possible in nature study that relate them

selves in a similar way to child life, things that the "child will learn as eagerly as he plays". I hesitate to pass an opinion on a good deal that goes by the name of nature study in city schools, but surely all will agree that we should bring in this leaven of self activity wherever we can, and I am convinced that this feature more than anything else will decide whether a child grows up to love nature or not.

The garden is fast coming to be recognized as the heart of such nature study; for around it center all manner of interests, not only in the useful and beautiful plant life, but in insect and bird life as well. Much of this is, of course, impossible in many sections of our large cities, but the heroic efforts some cities are making in this direction forms, I think, the most significant chapter in modern educational progress.

Where the outdoor garden is impossible, the window garden may to some degree take its place. Even if there is not light enough to share with the window garden, a child may rear a single plant in a flower pot or tin can, and thereby learn more elementary botany and at the same time gain a deeper insight into life than all the books could give him.

In fact, it is this personal relation to his own plant that is in the highest sense educative. Possibly the best illustration of the active method of nature study applicable to city schools may be drawn from the results of actual experience in this direction. Seeds of the same kind are distributed to the pupils early in the spring, and they are asked to plant them and see who can rear the best plants. Prizes may be offered, but this is not essential, and if the children are totally ig

norant of such matters and have never planted a seed of any kind before— as is likely to be the case in many city schools-we may give them two or three preliminary lessons on soils, plant foods in the soil, methods of preparation, planting different seeds, watering and the use of sunshine to the plants. Then let them do the rest at home, each promising to take the sole care of his plants and bring in the result for the general exhibition at the end of the term. In fact, this preliminary work is valuable almost anywhere, and serves to give the children an even start in the race. It is also a good plan to keep a few of the pots, which may have served to demonstrate these lessons, growing in a window in the school room-a pot of poor soil or sand, another to which plant foods have been added, one which is kept too wet, another too dry, and one with good soil kept as nearly right as possible. These will furnish material for any practical suggestions and lessons as the work progresses.

The kind of seed is not essential, June grass or clover might serve to test the ability of a child to rear a plant. Still we would naturally wish to bring to bear on the work all the human motive possible, so that I have chosen attractive plants-dwarf nasturtiums, calliopsis, bachelor's button, etc., the beauty of whose flowers will reward the children for their efforts.

The little experiment has worked like magic, and in possibilities of education has agreeably surprised those who expected much from it. It gives meaning and life to all the other plant lessons of the spring term. There is no limit to what a child may learn. Judgment and reason, patience and

perseverance, thoughtfulness and love are all unconsciously instilled into the life of the child. The mental and moral powers which a child develops in the care of his plant are the same he will use at every turn of life.

When a child comes to feel from experience that he can rear a plant, this newly acquired power will seek to find expression. About eighty-five per cent. of the pupils in one school where this experiment was tried at once set about making gardens at their homes. For several years I lived in a large city, and I have spent hours and days threading the back streets of many other cities, both in this country and abroad. From an educational point of view, nothing in the parks or boulevards has interested me so much as the little back yards, most of them empty and bare of any beautiful thing. But now and then I have found a miniature Eden, full to overflowing with roses, morning-glories, honeysuckles or nasturtiums. Another, perhaps, has little beds of lettuce and radishes with tomatoes fastened to the fence. Are there not possibilities, for active nature study and civilization in these back yards? With the flowers and other garden plants we would soon have butterflies and moths (not clothes moths) and many other garden insects. Hummingbirds and chipping sparrows and some other birds might be attracted as the garden areas increased. I have often thought that a city block, or even a single city yard, developed in this way -with photographs taken "before and after", if you please-would afford a most convincing object lesson to show the possibilities of the active method of nature study under city conditions.

The introducing of Nature Study in our schools is intended to lead the child into touch and sympathy with the life of nature about him and to open his eyes to many wonders and beauties that otherwise he would fail to see. Through the study of nature, it may be said, some secure a basis for delightful illustration and exquisite description. Appreciation of nature's loveliness has inspired poets and artists to give to the world masterpieces of art and sublimity, but in what way shall Nature Study benefit a commonplace life? Still does not Nature hold her treasures with outstretched and impartial hand to all who will tarry long enough to recognize their value? The study of nature may pass beyond the scholastic programme through the life of the humble toiler, if only his eyes have been opened and his heart set in tune.

The unoccupied and lonely stretches are in distorted contrast with the swarming city quarters. Sunshine with all its attendant blessings, pure air, health, room for expansion, music of brook, insects and birds (termed "the monotony of country life"), in contrast with gloom, foul air, congestion of limb and heart, squalor, din and strife. Surely 'tis more than a dream that a timely and judicious presenting of the values and beauties. of nature to the plastic child-mind may, in later life, incline and direct him to the quiet and peace of an ac

tive and contented country life. The better city classes as a rule are in sympathy with nature and they do receive the benefits that accrue from such agreement. But the more unfortunate sometimes, like those who have dwelt long in darkness and have thereby become sightless, seem blind to their condition and even to their birthright, that is an appreciation, at least, of the work of God in our beautiful world.

Face to face with a need, herein then lies an opportunity for the teacher to broaden the horizon of her pupil's view and to place on the picture plane of his youthful outlook mentally healthful groupings that may affect and beneficially color his whole life. But the question of material so often confronts the earnest teacher. How may she secure the objects she wishes? Careful search in free hours will bring in much. It is well, too, that such preparation is necessary, for unless the teacher herself be imbued, yes, and overflowing with a love for and acquaintance with. nature, she will not be likely to have an extra draught for the child. "Thou must thyself be true. If thou the truth would'st teach. Thy soul must ever overflow, If thou another soul would reach. It takes the overflow of heart To give the lips full speech." In some cases of carefully prepared sequence work material may not be