Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets / Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904

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BEING A SELECTION, WITH REVISION, FROM THE TEACHERS' LEAFLETS, HOME NATURE-STUDY LESSONS, JUNIOR NATURALIST MONTHLIES AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS FROM THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N.Y., 1896-1904
ALBANY J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS 1904

College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.
Hon. C. A. Wieting, Commissioner of Agriculture , Albany, N. Y.:
Sir.—I submit herewith as a part of the Annual Report of 1903 a number of the nature-study publications for reprinting. Most of these publications are out of print and the call for them still continues. These publications have practically all arisen under your supervision, and under the directorship of Professor I. P. Roberts.
Nature-study work should begin in the primary grades. It is a fundamental educational process, because it begins with the concrete and simple, develops the power of observation, relates the child to its environment, develops sympathy for the common and the near-at-hand. By the time the child has arrived at the fifth or sixth grade he should be well prepared for specific work in the modern environmental geography, in the industries, or in other exacter common-life subjects. Nature-study is a necessary foundation for the best work in biology, physiography and agriculture. Since it is content work, it is also equally important as a preparation in all expression work, as in English, number and reading. In most present-day rural schools it may well continue through the eighth grade; and, if well taught, it may even take the place very profitably of some of the science of some of the higher schools. Its particular sphere, however, in a well-developed school, is below the sixth grade, possibly below the fifth. But even if the term nature-study ceases at the fifth or sixth grade, the nature-study method will persist throughout the school course,—the method of dealing first-hand and in their natural setting with objects, phenomena and affairs, and of proceeding from the simple and undissected to the complex and remote.