This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ... Ill The Meaning of the Nature-Study Movement IT is one of the marks of the progress of the race that we are coming more and more into sympathy with the natural world in which we dwell. The objects and phenomena become a part of our lives. They are central to our thoughts. The happiest life has the greatest number of points of contact with the world, and it has the deepest sympathy with everything that is. The best thing in life is sentiment; and the best sentiment is that which is born of the most accurate knowledge. I like to make this application of Emerson's injunction to "hitch your wagon to a star"; but it must not be forgotten that a person must have the wagon before he has the star, and he must take due care to stay in the wagon when he rides in space. Mere facts are dead, but the meaning of the facts is life. The getting of information is but the beginning of education. "With all thy getting, get understanding." Of late years there has been a rapidly growing feeling that we must live closer to nature and make our nature-sentiment vital; and we must of course begin with the child. We attempt to teach this nature-love in the schools, and we call the effort nature-study. It would be better if it were called nature-sympathy. As yet there are no recognized and regulated methods of teaching nature-study. The subject is not a formal part of the course of study; and thereby it is not perfunctory. And herein lies much of its value--in the fact that it cannot be reduced to a mere system, is not cut and dried, cannot become a part of rigid and formal school method. Its very essence is spirit. It is as free as its subject-matter, as far removed from the museum and the cabinet as the living animal is from the skeleton. It thus transpires that...