Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Instruction Volume 64 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ...of docility, the grass of humility, the pine of order and precision, the lily of purity. Ruskin says, --" It is not possible for a Christian man to walk across so much as a rood of the natural earth, with mind unagitated and rightly poised, without receiving strength and hope from some stone, flower, leaf, or sound, nor without a sense of a dew falling upon him out of the sky." Is the effect of association so strong, or are these qualities inherent in the things themselves? Who can tell? But whether this theory is chimerical or not, the sympathy of children for nature is not an illusion, proof of which every thoughtful and observant teacher can furnish, and this sympathy being of the same kind as that exercised towards one's fellow-men must produce, in a measure, the same beneficent effect, and thus must be, not a patent panacea for the sins of the world, but one of those uplifting forces which " make for righteousness." Esthetic culture derived from the study of nature accompanies the ethical. One of its chief sources is sympathy and the chief factor in its development is a truthful interpretation of nature. The most ardent scientist can hardly be blind to the beauty of nature, much less young children. Ability to appreciate the beautiful in nature is the only intelligent basis of appreciation of art. There surely can be but one inference in regard to the value of nature study in esthetic culture. The esthetic also strengthens the ethical. He who has the seeing eye and understanding heart for the beautiful must shrink from that which is morally unsightly. To be sure, instances to the contrary have been known, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. In conclusion: If the intellectual training of science work is the only end sought, there is...