PUBLICATIONS DESIGNED TO AID THE TEACHER WITH SUBJECT-MATTER, TO INDICATE THE POINT OF VIEW, AND TO SUGGEST A METHOD OF PRESENTATION. THE SCHOOL HOUSE. BY L. H. BAILEY. In the rural districts, the school must become a social and intellectual centre. It must stand in close relationship with the life and activities of its community. It must not be an institution apart, exotic to the common-day lives; it must teach the common things and put the pupil into sympathetic touch with his own environment. Then every school house will have a voice, and will say: I teach The earth and soil To them that toil, The hill and fen To common men That live right here; The plants that grow, The winds that blow, The streams that run In rain and sun Throughout the year; And then I lead, Thro' wood and mead, Thro' mold and sod, Out unto God With love and cheer. I teach! LEAFLET I. WHAT IS NATURE-STUDY?[1] BY L. H. BAILEY. [1] Paragraphs adapted from Teachers' Leaflet, No. 6, May 1, 1897, and from subsequent publications. [Illustration] Nature-study, as a process, is seeing the things that one looks at, and the drawing of proper conclusions from what one sees. Its purpose is to educate the child in terms of his environment, to the end that his life may be fuller and richer. Nature-study is not the study of a science, as of botany, entomology, geology, and the like. That is, it takes the things at hand and endeavors to understand them, without reference primarily to the systematic order or relationships of the objects. It is informal, as are the objects which one sees. It is entirely divorced from mere definitions, or from formal explanations in books. It is therefore supremely natural. It trains the eye and the mind to see and to comprehend the common things of life; and the result is not directly the acquiring of science but the establishing of a living sympathy with everything that is. The proper objects of nature-study are the things that one oftenest meets. Stones, flowers, twigs, birds, insects, are good and common subjects. The child, or even the high school pupil, is first interested in things that do not need to be analyzed or changed into unusual forms or problems. Therefore, problems of chemistry and of physics are for the most part unsuited to early lessons in nature-study. Moving things, as birds, insects and mammals, interest children most and therefore seem to be the proper objects for nature-study; but it is often difficult to secure such specimens when wanted, especially in liberal quantity, and still more difficult to see the objects in perfectly natural conditions. Plants are more easily had, and are therefore usually more practicable for the purpose, although animals and minerals should by no means be excluded.