BETTER TEACHING

“With better teachers, numerous other improvements would come in, as, for instance, a better teaching of literature and of history, and better biological and geographical instruction, these natural history studies being pursued by the pupils in the open air as well as in the school-rooms.PBE 235.3

“I have elsewhere urged that all public open spaces, whether country parks, forests, beaches, city squares, gardens, or parkways, should be utilized for the instruction of the children of the public schools by teachers capable of interesting them in the phenomena of plant and animal life. But this means quite a new breed of common-school teachers.PBE 236.1

“The teaching of geography in the open air is a delightful form of instruction; but it requires a teacher fully possessed of the principles of physiography, and knowing how to illustrate these principles on a small scale in gutters, brooks, gullies, ravines, hillsides, and hilltops.PBE 236.2

“Some nature study of this desirable sort has been already introduced into American schools; but it is not persisted in through years enough of the school course. There is needed much more of this sort of study, beginning in the kindergarten and going through the high school.”PBE 236.3