New Iberia enterprise and independent observer. (New Iberia, La.) 1902-1944, 1902-11-29
NATURE STUDY.

adults and children alike, and un-
questionably do great good. Yet,
after all, while they are awakening
an interest in natural history they
tell about them only part of what
child wishes to know. The un-
technical parsonage obtains very
unsatisfactory and often an entirely
mistaken idea of the object about
which he is reading from the de-
scription as it appears in type
To learn what this description
means, he must see the object, or a
representation of it. Pictures, of
course, are good and help very
greatly, but they are not to be
compared with seeing the actual
thing, and in these days the actual
thing is usually to be found in
some form or other.
The country child, passing much
of his time abroad in fields or
woods, or on country roads, sees
for himself many of the common
things of nature and comes to know
them. He learns what they look
like and what are their ways. He
can name the birds, the flowers, the
trees and the insects, though the
names that he gives them are per-
haps of his own coming, not those
of the books and not understood by
others, but they serve his purpose.
The city child's opportunities are
far less. Everything that comes
before his eye is artificial, part of
civilization, something in which
nature has no share. Yet, on the
other hand, a city child has oppor-
tunities which are denied the youth
of the country. In most of the
cities there are museums that he
can visit, where a thousand things
are displayed that the country lad
never sees; there are geological
parks, where are confined strange
beast from foreign lands, such as
perhaps Livingston or DuChaillu
saw when they travelled through
the swamps and jungles of Africa
with their friendly negroes.
The country youth if book be
given him on the birds or the ami
mails or the insects of his own To-
cality will speedily teach himself
about them more than most scienti-
fic men know. The city boy should
have like chance, and it should
be part of the schooling of every
class in the schools of our city to
have local museum and geological
garden, and to be told about the
things that may there be seen.
Such plans are being adopted in
most all of our cities of any note,
and cannot fail to do great good,
and it is not to be doubted that this
method of teaching the children
will spread as soon as its advan-
tages become generally understood.
The pupils of the public schools
at Washington visit the Smith
sonian Institution, the National
Museum and the National Zoolog-
ical Park, and in their visits learn
a thousand things not taught in
books, that it is yet we'll to know.
In the same way, by the London
board of education, visits to
museums and instruction In ont
door life are reconed as school
attendances, and in many schools
are now regulated as a part of the
plan of education.
In country districts, school ex-
|cursions into the fields and woods
lin charge of competent persons
might we'll take the place OF mus
cum visits, aud might awaken il
many children who have no specia
learning toward natural history
study, a desire to know more Of
what is going oD in this beautiful
world about them.-Memphis Ap
4 peal.