The conclusion arising from this argument is that nature study as an end in itself, or a thing apart from the real or imagined experiences of the pupil, is but a faint reflection of what it may become under a more rational treatment. In order of time, nature study in the earliest grades may indeed rest upon the mere delight of the childish mind in the new, the strange, the beautiful, and especially in the motion of live creatures, and may be reinforced by childish literature. When boyhood and girlhood begin, however, then the industrial motive, first in the home environment, then of primitive times, becomes the chief reliance for an abiding interest. In the reproduction of primitive processes, there is of necessity a historical element. When nature has attained a firm apperceptive basis through imitation of primitive industrial processes, and has obtained a historical background, then it may properly be further reinforced by literary reference. The poetic value of nature will now appeal to the mind with a potency that springs from inner life and experience; scientific law will now have some chance of appealing to the mind with something of the same reverence that Kant besought for the moral law. The true order of appeal in nature study is therefore as follows: For infancy, natural curiosity and delight in the movements of living creatures; for the age of boyhood and girlhood, imitation, real or imaginary, of processes depending upon natural objects and forces, together with historical and literary reference; secondarily, nature work may also appeal to youthful interest in natural law or beauty. [34] Dewey, John, “The Aim of History in Elementary Education,” _Elementary School Record_, November, 1900, University of Chicago Press. 259. With the foregoing should be conjoined much attention to external nature, to the changes corresponding to the seasons, and to means of intercommunication. Under this head belongs, on the one hand, observation of the heavenly bodies,--where sun and moon rise, how the latter waxes and wanes, where the north star is found, and what arcs are described by the brighter stars and the most conspicuous constellations.