Nature Study is concerned with plants, birds, insects, stones, clouds, brooks, etc., but it is not botany, ornithology, entomology, geology, meteorology, or geography. In this study, it is the spirit of inquiry developed rather than the number of facts ascertained that is important. Gradually it becomes more systematic as it advances until, in the high school, it passes over into the science group of studies.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THESE ASPECTS
The simple observational lessons on The Robin, pages 96-7, form the bases for further study in more advanced classes. This bird as a destroyer of worms, beetles, etc., is a valuable assistant to the farmer as, indeed, are practically all birds in this Province. Birds such as the duck, goose, partridge, etc., are valuable as food, and laws are made to protect them during certain seasons.
The training in inference which a pupil receives in studying the parts of a plant or an animal and the adaptation of these parts to function is valuable. He studies the plant and the animal as living organisms with work to do in the world, and learns how what they do and their manner of doing it affect their form and structure.
The short, curved, and slightly hooked bill of the hen and her method of breaking open a pea pod or splitting an object too large to swallow shows the bill to be a mallet, a wedge, or a pick as the case may be. A study of the bills of the duck, woodpecker, and hawk will reveal the method by which each gets his food and how the organ is adapted to its purpose. Similar studies of the feet and legs of birds will make the idea of adaptation increasingly clear.
Literature is rich with tributes to the songs of the birds. The thoughts and feelings aroused or suggested by these songs are the topics of much of the world's enduring poetry. Longfellow, in his "Birds of Killing-worth" (Tales of a Wayside Inn) sings exquisitely of the use and beauty and worth of birds. Shelley, in his "Skylark", describes in glowing verse "the unbodied joy" that "singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest". Wordsworth hears the blithe new comer, the Cuckoo, and rejoices
Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.
The life story of a bird throws light on our own lives, puts us in sympathy with the lives of others, teaches kindness, teaches the duties and responsibilities of the higher to the lower, teaches respect for all life.
Observe the helpless bird in its nest, helpless as a baby. See the care given by the mother and father to keep it warm till its down and feathers grow, to feed it till it is able to leave the nest. Watch the parents teaching it to fly by repeated short flights. Olive Thorn Miller in her Bird Ways gives a delightful sketch of the father robin teaching a young robin where to look for worms and how to dig them up. When that task was accomplished, his father began to give him "music lessons", that is, practice in imitating the Robin's song. Thus, the young bird was equipped to make a living and to enjoy life. The social life of birds, as they sing their matins, as they choose their mates, as they gather in flocks preparatory to migration, furnish many opportunities for indirect teaching on many of life's problems.
The Ontario Readers contain many poems that may be used in connection with the Nature Study lessons. To supplement the observational studies of birds, read from the Third Reader, "The Robin's Song", "The Red-winged Blackbird", "The Sandpiper", "To the Cuckoo", "Bob White", "The Lark and the Rook", "The Poet's Song".