These various aims of science study are valuable to the teacher as
showing him the scope of his work. But a higher and more comprehensive
standpoint has been reached. We now realize that the great purpose of
this study is _insight into nature_, into this whole physical
environment, with a view to a better appreciation of her objects,
forces, and laws, and of their bearing on human life and progress.
All these purposes thus far developed in schools are to be considered
as valuable subsidiary aims, leading up to the central purpose of the
study of natural sciences, which is, "An understanding of life and of
the powers and of the unity which express themselves in nature;" or, as
Kraepelin says: "Nature should not appear to man as an inextricable
chaos, but as a well-ordered mechanism, the parts fitting exactly to
each other, controlled by unchanging laws, and in perpetual action and
production." Humboldt is further quoted: "Nature to the mature mind is
unity in variety, unity of the manifold in form and combination, the
content or sum total of natural things and natural forces as a living
whole. The weightiest result, therefore, of deep physical study is, by
beginning with the individual, to grasp all that the discoveries of
recent times reveal to us, to separate single things critically and yet
not be overcome by the mass of details, mindful of the high destiny of
man, to comprehend the mind of nature, which lies concealed under the
mantle of phenomena.
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