Back Matter

Postscript to Teachers

I N May, 1932, this book will have been in use six years. During this period the cordiality of its reception, by both teachers and children, gives the writer a genial excuse for certain comments of appreciation at the time of a revised edition.

First Lessons in Nature Study  has been most widely used in the third and fourth grades, but its service has not been confined to those grades. Indeed, it is interesting to the writer to learn that in certain schools the book has been used in every grade from the first to the eighth—the teachers in the first two grades, of course, reading aloud to the children.

With so wide a range as this in mind, it may be well to discuss the material presented in this book with reference to the recommendations of the committee on curriculum revision in nature study and elementary science as published by the National Education Association. (DEPARTMENT OF SUPERINTENDENCE Fourth Yearbook,  1926. Chap. IV, pp. 59–112.)

A glance through the index of First Lessons in Nature Study  will serve to inform the teacher that this book covers all the main topics and the majority of the subtopics suggested by that committee for the study of plant and animal life ("Biological Nature Study") in the kindergarten and the first six grades.

The correlation of this book with the recommendations of the committee of the National Education Association is by virtue of coincidence in judgment rather than by design, since the manuscript of First Lessons in Nature Study  was completed before the Fourth Yearbook  was published.

Such correlation, of course, whether by accident or planning, favors the use of this book as a basal text in such schools as include nature study in the curriculum. It emphasizes, also, its usefulness as a supplementary reader in those schools which prefer the use of informational readers. Furthermore, it accords with its service as a background of fuller source material in certain subjects for schools which are using series of nature readers or readers in elementary science.

In "A Word to the Reader of This Book," page vii, the writer indicated that the book is addressed to persons living in all parts of the United States. Indeed, great care was taken in the selection of subject matter, to the end that the book might have no regional restrictions. A few examples illustrating this point may not be out of place.

Among the native mammals chosen for this book are rabbits  which hop north, east, south, and west; bats  which may be seen at dusk anywhere in North America where night-flying insects occur; whales  which swim in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans; black bears  which were formerly common in most of wooded North America though they are now exterminated in many places; foxes  and skunks  which have a distribution over most of the United States and much of Canada; muskrats  which occur in most of North America from 35° in the south to 55° in the north; and beavers  which were originally distributed over most of North America from Alaska and Labrador to the Rio Grande.

Equal care has been taken with the birds, fishes, insects, and other animal subjects, to choose, for the most part, species with wide geographic range instead of those of restricted regional interest.

The same attention has been given the selection of plants, as may be ascertained by reference to their distribution given in books on botany and agriculture.

To be sure apparent exceptions may be found in cotton  and sugar cane  which can be grown only in certain regions in southern parts of the United States. These plants, however, because of their products, are of interest also to persons not living in the South. Moreover, in both these instances, northern-grown relatives of these southern plants are introduced in the same chapters.

It is not necessary further to stress the geographic range of the subjects treated in this book. For, after all, one broadleaf tree or one conifer is as interesting as another to study. The commonest plants and animals are presented partly as an attempt to show that wherever one may live, it is not necessary to go far afield to find material of absorbing interest.

ORONO, MAINE

December, 1931.