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CORNELL
Nature-Study Leaflets
BEING A SELECTION, WITH REVISION, FROM THETEACHERS' LEAFLETS, HOME NATURE-STUDYLESSONS, JUNIOR NATURALIST MONTHLIES ANDOTHER PUBLICATIONS FROM THE COLLEGE OFAGRICULTURE, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N.Y.,1896-1904
State of New York—Department of Agriculture
Nature-Study Bulletin No. 1
ALBANY
J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS
1904
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.
Hon. C. A. Wieting,
Commissioner of Agriculture,
Albany, N. Y.:
Sir.—I submit herewith as a part of the Annual Report of 1903a number of the nature-study publications for reprinting. Mostof these publications are out of print and the call for them stillcontinues. These publications have practically all arisen underyour supervision, and under the directorship of Professor I. P.Roberts.
Nature-study work should begin in the primary grades. It is afundamental educational process, because it begins with the concreteand simple, develops the power of observation, relates thechild to its environment, develops sympathy for the common andthe near-at-hand. By the time the child has arrived at the fifthor sixth grade he should be well prepared for specific work in themodern environmental geography, in the industries, or in otherexacter common-life subjects. Nature-study is a necessary foundationfor the best work in biology, physiography and agriculture.Since it is content work, it is also equally important as a preparationin all expression work, as in English, number and reading.In most present-day rural schools it may well continue throughthe eighth grade; and, if well taught, it may even take the placevery profitably of some of the "science" of some of the higherschools. Its particular sphere, however, in a well-developedschool, is below the sixth grade, possibly below the fifth. Buteven if the term nature-study ceases at the fifth or sixth grade, thenature-study method will persist throughout the school course,—themethod of dealing first-hand and in their natural setting withobjects, phenomena and affairs, and of proceeding from thesimple and undissected to the complex and remote.
The reader should bear in mind that the College of Agriculturehas no organic connection with the public school system of New[2]York State, and that its nature-study work is a propaganda. Fromfirst to last the College has been fortunate in having the sympathy,aid, and approval of the State Department of Public Instruction,and now of the new Education Department. The time is nownear at hand when nature-study will be adequately recognized inthe school system of the State, and then the nature-study w