History.— Nature study, as a name, is quite recent, but as an actual fact it is old in a part of its development at least. However, it re mained for recent advocates of nature study to give it a permanent place upon the curricu lum of the public schools, and later, the high schools and colleges. Socrates and Aristotle advocated and employed methods in teaching very much like those insisted upon by the modern teacher of nature study. But probably their methods were but echoes of a very general and widely extended custom of nature study. The American Indians, over practically the whole extent of the two continents, had sys tems of instruction fitted, in the case of each tribe or nation, to its own peculiar condition and racial requirements. But in every case this instruction was carried on very largely along the lines laid down by the modern ad vocate of nature study. In the case of the North American Indians, the young brave had practically all his instruction in the haunts of nature where he learned to know all about the wild animals of the forest, the birds, the fishes, the trees, the winds, the weather, the seasons and the manifestations thereof. In short, his life was as close as it possibly could be to nature. Even among the Aztecs, the Mayas and the more cultured races of Mexico, Central America and the west coast of South America, the system of instruction was essentially the same for the great mass of the people, who were kept very much nearer to nature's heart than they are to-day. So nature study is little more than getting back to the earlier methods of instruction which was still very much alive when the Great Teacher said: 'Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' At the beginning of the Christian era the phil osophers of the Roman Empire were in the habit of teaching their pupils in the open; and traveling teachers frequently went about from place to place, at times accompanied by pupils who formed a following; and thus accom panied, they taught on the open market places, in front of the temple and other public places where the masses were accustomed to congre gate. This custom was undoubtedly the sur vival of a very much earlier and more general custom in which nature teaching must have played a prominent part, if we are to judge from survivals of this very ancient open air teaching in many southern countries to-day and of real nature study and teaching among such semi barbaric and semi-civilized races as have de veloped systems of instruction fitted to their several needs.
'The Renaissance brought forth teachers who strenuously advocated more natural methods in teaching, not only languages but all other sub jects. Of these men the most prominent, the greatest and most far-seeing was Rousseau, some of whose more advanced ideas are but beginning to be realized to-day. Pestalozzi, Froebel and their followers and the modern kindergarten teachers have all been working closer and closer to the goal of nature study whose principles they have been following, con scionsly or unconsciously. The revolution in teaching was bound to come with the Renais sance; but it came very slowly. Men were too busy with the new learning to bother them selves about the methods of acquiring it. The thing itself was to them all important. But as the novelty wore off, teachers began to think about ways of teaching. Hundreds of methods were put upon the market, all echoes and re echoes of one another, with here and there a glimmer of new light. But the light, though not very apparent, was really there, though hidden by many clouds of prejudice, custom, habit, misunderstanding and ignorance. The
cry of men like Agassis, Rousseau, 011endorf, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Berk: and the whole school of natural method teachers was to get nearer to nature, to have teaching of languages conform to the natural methods by which a child acquires his mother tongue. While these men were builders, they were necessarily anar chistic, to a very considerable degree. They were bent upon sweeping out of existence the old methods which had failed to accomplish what they were intended to accomplish. They were largely anarchistic in their methods also. Let us teach as the child teaches himself, they said. Let us gather facts and impressions from nature just as 'we conic into contact with her, any old way,* provided we accomplish what we aim at. The result was that practically all these "natural methods* were anything but "natural." They followed no line of develop ment or plan; because nature's methods pre sented themselves to these natural method teachers as evolutionary.
Just when these unscientific methods of teaching had begun to bring discredit upon their authors and more scientific teachers had begun to protest and to replace the somewhat discredited "nature method" designation with that of direct method, teachers of natural sciences in the public schools discovered that the term was still a good one for their pur poses. "Let us get nearer to nature in our teaching,"was their cry; and they shouted it as enthusiastically as though it had not been al ready worn threadbare. Science had just been introduced into the public schools and colleges of the country. The science teachers of the lower grades went through the same experi ences as the language teachers in getting nearer to nature. The early teachers, in their protest against the too exact and dry methods of the regular science teachers, protested against any method whatever. If teachers would only get nearer to nature everything would he all right, they preached, for nature, in her kindness, Would take care of them. These educational anarchists were soon, however, replaced by men of larger vision, who saw the possibilities of nature teaching if it were only organized and made to follow scientific principles and taught according to properly worked out plans by means of contact with nature supplemented by well organized laboratories of natural objects. This, however, was not done without protests from the ultra wing of the nature study teach ers, who talked about the restraints of the unnatural technical science teaching and pleaded for what they denominated the natural, untram meled development of the child's faculties from the child's point of view. In this there was a small amount of truth and a large amount of misconception of the true functions of teach ing. Their cry was a protest against the dry, formal teaching of the school room; and it served its purpose. It quickened the science teacher into action; and nature study methods enterr.d many a science room, many a labora tory, greatly to the improvement of science teaching, and in fact, of teaching in almost every department of school and college life. Nature study was applied to literature, and literature to nature study. The pupil was taught to see the beauties and laws of nature at work in the truest of nature poems, and these poems were read, by nature rteachers, as supple mentary to their regular studies. This evolu tion shows two distinct phases, which have been indirectly indicated,—the tearing away from the old methods of teaching; and later on, the building of the new nature study structure scientifically upon the bases of the old.