The Nature-Study Idea

A CONTRIBUTOR to a recent issue of a leading technical journal has endeavored to find a satisfactory answer to the question, “What is naturestudy?” by appealing to “eminent scientific men.”¹ The answers of these men are printed there in full. Now, the nature-study movement is not a product of “eminent scientific men,” nor directly of the current natural-science movement. It is a product of the common schools.² Eminent scientific attainment, as such, is not to be expected to enable persons to give satisfactory answer to the question, for the subject is not within its realm. Happily, many scientific men are