This practical aspect of things is penetrating into every department,
and when it is combined with some study of first principles nothing
better can be desired. For instance, in the teaching of geography, of
botany, etc., there is a growing inclination to follow the line of
reality, the middle course between the book alone and the laboratory
alone, so that these subjects gather living interest from their many
points of contact with human life, and give more play to the powers of
children. As the text-book of geography is more and more superseded by
the use of the atlas alone, and the botanical chart by the children's
own drawings, and by the beautiful illustrations in books prepared
especially for them, the way is opened before them to worlds of beauty
and wonder which they may have for their own possession by the use of
their eyes and ears and thoughts and reasonings.
3. But better than all new apparatus and books of delight is the
informal study of the world around us which has grown up by the side of
organized teaching of natural science. The name of "nature study" is the
least attractive point about it; the reality escapes from all
conventionalities of instruction, and looks and listens and learns
without the rules and boundaries which belong to real lessons.
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