THE first step to take in teaching science to young people and in popularizing the study among older people is to throw away much of the traditional polysyllabic phraseology and use a little common sense and good old Anglo-Saxon now and then—to teach nature, instead of science.

There is not only great danger in being too technical, but in telling too much. We all like to talk on our pet subjects. We rattle along, airing our opinions and pouring out big volumes of knowledge, and expect the poor pupils, like great dry sponges, to absorb the gracious gift. But they don't absorb; it isn't their business; they belong to quite another sub-kingdom; and while we are just about to congratulate ourselves on our facility of expression and wise beneficence, we are rudely made aware that our eloquence was all lost; and, worse still, we have been guilty of repression, of stifling natural curiosity, and crushing what might become a priceless, inquiring, intellectual habit.

Is it any wonder that so few ever go on with this geology, mineralogy, botany, or zoÖlogy, after they leave school? What is our object as teachers? Is it to cram geology and botany down passive throats in one or two school terms, or is it to lead our students so gently and awaken so keen a desire that they shall study these sciences all their lives, to be a never-ending joy, a pure pleasure and a solace amid coming cares and darkening days? Oh, I, too, have been guilty, and may heaven forgive my exceeding foolishness! The remainder of my days are being spent in penance, in propitiating the office of the recording angel by a more humble and righteous way of life.

So much for the language of the teacher, and now for the means of giving reality to his teaching efforts. This can only be done by the laboratory method or investigation in the field. With the latter, out-door work only does this paper especially treat.

ACTUAL CONTACT WITH NATURE.

While I do not for a moment decry the use of books, either for collateral reading or for text-books—in fact, I plead for a wider reading and profounder study of the best scientific writers—still, I feel just as you must feel, that there is something radically wrong in much of our science teaching, and that we have come to regard books as more real than the earth, the sky, the rocks; the plants, and the animals, which are all about us.

Just why this is so, I am unable to understand. Nature is so lavish! On all sides, easy of access, are the phenomena and the realities, while the school-room is artificial, and the teacher, alas, in perfect keeping with the school-room.

Can it be that pupils are averse to actual contact with nature? Not at all. From the earliest childhood throughout life there is in most persons a remarkable turn toward curious investigation, and thorough understanding of the things of nature. That I know from my own experience while teaching in the grammar schools.

One day I asked the pupils to bring me in any specimens of stones they might find in the vacant lots and the fields; and then I promised to give them a talk about these stones. I expected perhaps twenty or thirty specimens. What was my amazement and secret horror when, the next day and the next came dozens and dozens of specimens until, in a few days, I had over a ton and a half, containing 3,000 specimens. There were granites, gneisses and schists and quartzes; there were sandstones, slates, shales, limestones, glacial scratchings, marbles and onyx; there were geodes, crystals, ores, stone hammers, arrow-heads, brickbats, furnace slag, and fossils. I took everything smilingly, and at night the janitor and I buried many duplicates and the useless stuff in a deep hole where they wouldn't be likely to get hold of it again.

We soon possessed an excellent cabinetful, and had fine times talking about the making of stones—the crust of the earth—former inhabitants, the great ice age, and such simple geology as they could understand; and they did understand; that did not end it. We studied plants in the same way; physics and chemistry, with home-made apparatus. Of course, it all took time, and a good deal of it; and there wasn't any extra pay for it, either; but there are labors whose recompense is far more precious than dollars and cents.

And so I find enthusiasm also for out-door science, among secondary pupils and among the great body of intelligent people of our cities; and if nature is so accessible, and pupils are so eager for its secrets, and we still worship books and ignore the visible objects and forces so freely at our disposal, there is no other conclusion to arrive at, except that the teacher himself is either too ignorant or too indolent to make proper use of them. It takes time; it needs enthusiasm; it needs a genuine love for the subject in hand, and a profound interest in and sympathy with the student.

The subjects in which field work may be made very useful are geography, geology, botany, and zoÖlogy, and the objects are, of course, apparent to all. First, it cultivates a familiarity with nature, which is wholesome and desirable. We are living in an artificial age. Children nowadays get too much pocket money; there is too much theater; too much smartness; too much flabbiness for the real business of life; too much blasÉ yawning; too many parties; too much attention to dress; the color of the necktie; the crease of the trowsers, or the make of a gown. The only meaning science has for many of the richer classes is the curved ball of the pitcher, the maneuvers of the quarterback, or the manly art of self-defense.

I know of nothing that will counter-act the indifference of parents and lead the young mind back to a simpler and more humanizing condition of life than to make it familiar with old mother earth, the stream, the valley, the tree, the flower, and the bird.

Another object of field work is to develop habits of correct observation. Pupils ordinarily take too much for granted. They will swallow anything that is printed in a book, or that the teacher may choose to tell, always providing the pupil is sufficiently awake to perform the function. It is hardly an exaggeration that they would believe the moon was made of green cheese, providing the statement came with august solemnity from the teacher's chair. There is too hasty generalization and a prevailing unwillingness to careful examination. Careful field work opens the eye and corrects much of this slovenly mode of thinking, creates honest doubt, and questions an unsupported statement. The pupil wants to see the pollen on the bee before he believes in cross-fertilization; he wants to see rocks actually in layers before he will believe they could have been deposited in water, and he pounds up a fragment of sandstone to get at the original sand; he wants to see the actual castings before he will believe all that Darwin says about his wonderful earthworms; and few things escape the eye of the pupils who go out with the understanding that it is business and their duty to observe and take notes.

Another object of field study is to see life in its environment. Stuffed birds and animals in cases are all very good; shells look pretty behind nice glass doors, and herbaria play a very important part; yet, after all, how much better to see a thrush's flight; to hear the pewee's song; how much more satisfactory to watch a snail creep and feed; how much more delightful to study the blossoming hepatica; to note its various leaves, its soil, its surroundings, and discover why it blooms at the very opening of springtime.

More can be learned from a handful of pebbles on the beach than a whole book written upon the same subject.

Yet another object is to acquire specific information not contained in books. The feel of a leaf, the odor of the honeysuckle, or the pine, the cry of the kingfisher, the locomotion of a horse, and the locomotion of a cow, the formation of miniature gorges in a rain storm, and the wearing of a shore under the action of the waves, these and countless other manifestations can never be described in mere words.—The School Journal.