But on account of
the present lack of system and of clear purpose in natural science
teachers, the first great problem in this field of common school effort
is to select the material and perfect the method of studying nature
with children.
Our estimate of the value of natural science for culture and for
discipline is confirmed by the opinion of educational _reformers_ and
by the changes and progress in schools. An inquiry into the history of
education in Europe and in America since the Reformation will show that
the movement towards nature study has been accumulating momentum for
more than three hundred years. In spite of the failure of such men as
Comenius, Ratich, Basedow, and Rousseau to secure the introduction of
these studies in a liberal degree, in spite of the enormous influence
of custom and prejudice in favor of Latin and other traditional
studies, the natural sciences have made recently such surprising
advances and have so penetrated and transformed our modern life that we
are simply compelled, even in the common school, to take heed of these
great, living educational forces already at work.
The _universities_ of England and of the United States have been
largely transformed within the last forty years by the introduction, on
a grand scale, of modern studies, particularly of the natural sciences.
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