The course in nature study outlined on the preceding pages may be varied indefinitely in its details. Neighborhood facilities, the environment of the children, and the attainments and taste of the teacher have much to do in shaping these details. The outline course in nature study on page 409 is introduced to show one of the possible variations. Certain grand features, however, should be kept constantly in thought in planning and executing nature courses, such, for examples, as these:—

1. The study of nature means the study of the mineral, plant and animal worlds, the phenomena of nature, and the laws exemplified in them.

2. The study should begin with those aspects of nature that are nearest to the child and best fitted to excite his interest; movement, action and life appeal to the young child very strongly.

3. The important thing is not to acquire a great fund of information about nature, however valuable such a fund must be as a foundation for the more serious study of maturer years. It is rather to furnish well-selected fields for the exercise and development of the child's natural activities; to train his

Animals.

Human Body.*

Natural Phenomena.

Properties and uses of min. Parts of plants with simple Native birds.

Matter and Force.

Metals and ores.

* Including lessons on the nature and effects of stimulants and narcotics.

VI.

powers of observation and strengthen his self-reliance, to take advantage of his play instinct, his inquiring turn of mind and his spontaneous interest, to lead him on to new themes; to present such themes in a fairly methodical way so that the child's views, however elementary, shall have a trend towards comprehensiveness and unity; to fix in the child's mind, as an outcome of his own study and experience, the outlines or germs of great principles in the confident expectation that related thoughts, in later years, and without special teaching guidance, will naturally group themselves about the axes or centres of thought thus established: - in short, to cultivate in the child what may be called the elementary equivalent of the genuine scientific spirit so that out of his native fondness for things about him shall come an enthusiastic, truth-seeking, reverent attitude towards nature, with boldness to question her, patience to study her and readiness to be taught by her. The right interaction between nature and the child has an ethical as well as an intellectual value.

4. The child's observations, however simple and crude, should be the starting point in each exercise, the teacher's work lying chiefly in the domain of furnishing material, stimulus and guidance. Children may be told things in connection with their observations, but the telling should be in response to a real demand; it should also be brief and to the point. The time for such telling is during that interesting interval that begins when the child's humble powers show signs of being sufficiently taxed and ends with the failure of his interest. Telling is not teaching, but teaching involves some telling.

5. Training the powers of observation is more than training the vision. It involves training the sense of hearing, of smelling, of touch, of all the powers and their varied modes of action by which we gain a knowledge of the external world. Do not go much into details or into nice discriminations. The child sees things in a large, crude and surface way, very much as he expresses them in his drawing. Intensive study belongs to his maturer years. A course in nature study loses much of its formidable look if it is kept clearly in mind that it is a child's course, and that it should be kept within the range of his interest, his comprehension, and his feeble but growing power of holding his mind down to work. If the scope of

nature study is not thus limited, it widens out into something boundless and hopeless.

7. Plan in all possible ways to have the child handle objects, apply tests, measure dimensions, make plans and models, -in short, do things. The doing, of course, should yield results and advance the work of the school.

8. Work from the child as the centre, not from one's preconceived plan based upon some theme as the centre. The skillful teacher, however, who does not, in his plans, forget this principle, may lead the child into such plans along the simple and enjoyable pathway of his native or easily excited interest.

9. Cultivate the various forms of expression, such as oral and written language, drawing, and, in cases that readily admit of it, construction.

SLOYD.

(The following course of lessons in Sloyd is inserted by permission of the author, G. Larsson, who reserves all rights in the original copy.)

AIMS, MEANS AND CONDITIONS OF SLOYD.

The HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT of the pupil-giving him by manual exercises and the use of the creative instinct such GENERAL TRAINING as will tend to fit him, mentally, morally and physically for any subsequent SPECIAL TRAINING. Important among Sloyd methods are:

1. Strictly PROGRESSIVE EDUCATIONAL EXERCISES mentally as well as physically.

2. The appeal to many activities, by means of a judicious VARIETY OF EXERCISES, treating the hand, like the eye or ear, as an avenue to the mind.

3. Freehand work or modeling with the KNIFE.

4. The making and the use of WORKING DRAWINGS.

5. Form study and the cultivation of the ÆSTHETIC SENSE. 6. An ESSENTIAL PROPORTION between problems of thought, of drawing and of tool work.

7. The cultivation of habits of ACCURACY and thorough HONESTY by the pupil's correction of his own mistakes, no concealment of which can be tolerated.

8.

Consideration of the GENERAL PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT, to which a judicious sequence and combination of tools may be made to contribute materially.

9.

Both CLASS INSTRUCTION and INDIVIDUAL INSTRUCTION, a true progression of exercises making both possible even with large numbers.

10. The New Education" demands, wherever possible, as a means of mental development, the use of the complete thought, of the phrase instead of the spelling lesson; in sympathy with this idea Sloyd employs the USEFUL MODEL, and as the exercises embodied in the models are based upon pedagogical principles, so must the teaching be. Sloyd therefore requires a TRAINED TEACHER.

The course here outlined is intended for three years' work in the upper grammar grades, the time each week being about two hours. The making or reading of working drawings should precede the making of each model.

Cherry,. kiln-dried, rough, x 6
Cherry,. . kiln-dried, rough, 14 x 4
Mahogany, kiln-dried, planed, x 6 inches,

inches, 1

square feet.

inches,

square foot.

square foot.

Cost of wood for the series, $1.94.