mentary textbook on which he can not throw a flood of light from his own investigation and wider reading. And third, and most important of all for the teacher, he should understand the mental processes involved in learning his subject, so that, while the pupil is thinking the subject, the teacher can think the pupil's thinking of the subject. This will result in securing to the pupil the maximum of discipline at the same time that he is enlarging his knowledge and broadening his culture.

Bibliography of publications referred to in the text Blodgett, J. H. School Textbooks of Geography. Jour. Sch. Geog. 1899. 3:138.

Brooks, Edward.

Burrows, F. R.

Jour. Sch. Geog.

Normal Methods of Teaching. Phila. 1889.

The Teaching of Geography in Preparatory Schools. 1900. 4:331.

Butler, N. M. Confessions of a Psychologist (editorial comment on G. Stanley Hall's article of above caption), Rev. ed. 1901. 22:103. Cornish, R. H. Laboratory Work in Elementary Physiography. Jour. Sch. Geog.

1897.

1:172.

Davis, W. M. Home Geography. Jour. Sch. Geog. 1897. 1:2.

Practical Exercises in Geography. Nat. Geog. Mag. 1900. 11:62. Local Illustrations of Distant Lands. Jour. Sch. Geog. 1901. 5:85. Dodge, R. E. Geography Study for Teachers (Emerson). Jour. Sch. Geog. 1899. 3:100.

Dryer, C. R.

Studies in Indiana Geography. Terre Haute. 1897. Gager, C. S. Laboratory Exercises in Physical Geography. Univ. State N. Y. High school bul. 7. Ap. 1900. p. 696. Geikie, A. The Teaching of Geography. London. Harris, W. T. The Future of the Normal School. Kelton, M. E.

1892.

Rev. ed. 1899. 17:1. Apperception in Geography. Nat. Geog. Mag. 1900.

Mace, W. H. Method in History. Boston. 1897.

11:192.

The Central Defect of the Normal School. Rev. ed. 1901. 21:132.
Field Work in Geographic Teaching. N. Y. Teachers Mag.

Merrill, J. A.

1900. 3:9.

Payne, W. H.

The Training of the Teacher. Rev. ed.

Redway, J. W.
Rice, J. M.

27:452.

1899. 16:469.

1901.

The New Basis of Geography. New York.
Why Teachers have no Professional Standing. Forum. 1899.

Snyder, W. H. Geographical Laboratory Work in Worcester Academy. Jour. Sch. Geog. 1899. 3:368.

Tarr, R. S. Physical Geography and Geology in New York Schools. The Science Teacher. 1898. 1:61.

[The third paper was given without notes by Prof. C. T. McFarlane, principal of the state normal school at Brockport. Prof. McFarlane emphasized the necessity of devoting special

attention to the relations of life, specially human life and occupations, to the environment, and expressed his belief that a knowledge of the physical controls of life could be taught as well by analyzing the life conditions of selected regions as by beginning with physical geography and ending with the life conditions dependent thereon.

The last paper was by Prof. Will S. Monroe, of the state normal school at Westfield Mass., who outlined the possibilities and necessity of teaching anthropo-geography in normal schools.

An animated discussion followed the papers, to which Frank Carney, of the Ithaca high school, Prof. Albert P. Brigham, of Colgate University, Professors Gager, McFarlane, Monroe and the chairman contributed.]

Section D. NATURE STUDY

WHAT IS THE MINIMUM NATURE STUDY TRAINING FOR A TEACHER IN AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL?

BY SUP'T DARWIN L. BARDWELL, BINGHAMTON

The discussion of the minimum or of any of the requirements for teachers of nature study, practically supposes that one's mind is made up respecting the field of nature study. It is not my intention, and evidently not the intention of the originators of the program, to call for a discussion of that side of it. You will see that what I have to say will come out of an understanding of what is the proper province of nature study. I have in mind two lines of needs. In the first line of needs, one thing; in the second line of needs, more than one.

For the first. In some correspondence which it has been my privilege to have with teachers, directors and supervisors of nature study in different parts of the country, I received Christmas morning a letter from a supervisor of nature study work in one of the smaller cities of Ohio. He is new in that field, and we have had some correspondence regarding the work he is trying to do in that city. In this letter he said he found that the greatest weakness was the need on the part of his teachers of some experience in nature study itself. That is the first need I wish to emphasize-a need of practical, actual experience. So far as this vital experience is concerned, it is not much mat

ter in what field it is obtained, but it must be in some field if the teacher is to be a successful director of nature study. A teacher who has never traveled outside his town can not teach geography in any but the very poorest manner. He must have had a wide range of experience, personal experience so far as it can be obtained, and his personal experience supplemented and augmented by what he learns from the experience of other travelers in wider fields. The same may be said of the teacher of nature study.

The second line is a basis of material information-factssomething that shall be a stock in trade, materials with which to work. Here I shall speak along three lines.

First, the teacher of nature study must have a fairly intimate acquaintance with the more evident phenomena of the weather and climate in the particular section of the earth in which he lives. It is a common saying that anyone can talk about the weather. Not everyone can talk intelligently about the weather. A fair understanding of some of the more evident facts controlling the weather is highly imperative. Something of an understanding respecting winds, atmospheric pressure, the laws which control the phenomena of erosion and deposit, is an essential portion of a teacher's stock in trade, if he is successfully to carry on this section of work, which it seems to me is properly classed with nature study. To this end, he needs to be pretty fairly familiar with the subject-matter contained in certain sections of any good textbook in physical geography and with the more manifest laws of physics, including pneumatics, hydrostatics, and heat. He needs to know beyond the possibility of question, why it is and how it is that a large body of water helps to keep the general atmospheric conditions more stable and the temperature more uniform throughout the 12 months of the year, than is the case in a section where there is no large body of water. He knows these things because he has investigated them to a certain extent, because he has carried on, in a limited yet true and effectual way, some little experiments pertaining to that sort of thing.

Another need is a vital, intimate acquaintance with certain forms of plant life surrounding him-in short, the old-fashioned botany. I have nothing to say in objection to the microscope

in the study of botany. But laboratory work in botany is not a sine qua non for the teacher of nature study. It may be a good thing, an excellent thing. It helps to widen the horizon, and may be used with considerable success, or it may be left out entirely and the teacher not be very badly handicapped so far as nature study is concerned. But it is highly imperative that the teacher shall have a clear understanding of a plant like the hepatica, its life history and the laws controlling its life; shall understand something pertaining to the method of inflorescence; in short, he wants to be on good speaking acquaintanceship with the hepatica type of plants. Then he wants to have his range large and his study intimate, so that he can pick up a new flower, belonging to the same family for instance, and by an examination of 10 or 15 seconds will be able to say beyond question that it belongs to the same family. He wants to understand the life and some of the properties and the value to men of some of the vegetables as they are found in this portion of the world. He needs to know how to look at the ordinary tree found in this region, and to see what it has to tell him as it stands by itself. It will tell him in an instant of certain laws. He should be able to tell clearly and at once certain of the great industrial values of certain classes of hard woods. These will be stock in trade, and from these he can amplify and enlarge.

He also wants to have a good, clear familiarity with the fauna surrounding him. He needs to have an acquaintance with a book like Hooker's Natural History. Get the study with the microscope, if possible, as that is excellent. It will greatly assist the nature study teacher in the grades; but I would much rather that one of my teachers should know the life history of the toad than to know the structure of the particular ganglion in the toad's anatomy which must be tickled to make the toad jump. Live animals he wants to become familiar with, and not dead

ones.

In addition to that, he requires a more intimate acquaintance with certain families and certain types. A more extended study in a certain department, insects, for example, might be had. The same might be said respecting other classes, birds, for instance. It is not necessary, to my mind, that he should know birds and insects intimately, but, in addition to the general knowledge,

he should know something quite intimately respecting a few individuals of one of these classes. If it is insects, he should know pretty clearly the general laws of the best classification, so that, if he takes up an insect he has never seen, he will be able to tell the division to which it belongs. There is thus born within him a certain consciousness and power, reserved and actual, which comes from that kind of intimate acquaintance and which goes farther than we can estimate, which helps to arouse enthusiasm, and which makes the child walk safely and with a sure advance into other realms of which less may be known.

So he wants to know something of the life history of certain of the other forms of insect life, as they surround him: what is back of the particular event which occurs when the June bug, or May beetle, comes up to the window and asks to be let in after the lamps are lighted at night.

Have I made clear the field which the teacher of nature study wants to be made familiar with? If he is familiar with these things before he enters upon his work, well and good. If not, they should be made familiar. I have placed them as a minimum.

I am aware that many teachers and most excellent teachers come with less requirement than this, but I take it that it is not our business to encourage the employment of people before they are fairly well equipped to earn a salary. It is not our business to encourage the employment of people till after they know enough, and have acquired enough power to go ahead and work with a considerable degree of sureness and effectiveness. The inexperienced teacher has much to learn; the best have much to learn. But there must be a certain minimum or there is a vast deal of friction, loss of time and energy, and nervousness in worrying about results.

There shall be a basis of actual experience with something. There shall be an acquaintance with facts pertaining to the more evident phenomena of the world around us, including physi cal geography and physics; in botany, including a familiarity with the general characteristics of the more common types of plants, like the rose, buttercup etc.; and a similar study of the more common forms of animal life as they occur about us.