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PREFACE All over the world a great deal of importance is attached to nature study. But it has yet to be introduced in our country. Nature study is most valuable regarded from the educational point of view, as it inculcates habits of exact observation and stimulates the reasoning powersIt will prove a useful corrective to the gradual decay of the power of independent assimilation and the initiative, that has set in amidst the students. So this subject ought to occupy a high place in the rank of educational Subjects. In teaching this subject it should ever be borne in mind that the main purpose of nature study is not the acquisition of mere facts about Nature, but it is, and ought to be “a training in the methods of open-eyed, close, and accurate observation especially of familiar animals and plants, which shall teach the student to see what he looks at and to think about what he sees.” The teacher should not attempt to teach. The objects themselves should be the teachers, and the work of the school master lies in explaining and guiding the students. Botany is, perhaps, best suited for the purpose, as plants are easy toget and pleasant to handle. To interest children in their work, the teacher himself must have a clear idea of at least the main facts of the subject.
