Principal Central High School, Buffalo. 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.