Chapter IV: To the Teacher

There are several practical uses to which you can put this
chapter, and the similar chapters, VII and XII: they can be made
the purpose for field excursions with the class. Such excursions
might be quite impossible for many a teacher in school hours;
and we know how the exacting duties overcrowd the after-school
hours; but one field excursion each season of the year, no
matter how precious your time, would do more for you and your
class than many books about nature read inside your four
plastered walls. Better the books than nothing; but take the
book and go with your pupils into the real out of doors.

Again, you can make these chapters a kind of nature test,
asking each pupil to try to see each of the things suggested
here; or, if these do not chance to be the sights
characteristic of the autumn in your region, then such sights
as are characteristic. So the chapter can serve as a kind of
field guide to the pupil, and a kind of test of his knowledge
of nature.

Again, you can make each item mentioned here the subject for a
short composition direct from the pupil’s experience--the only
kind of subject for him to write upon. Or make each item (say,
No. IV, the Ballooning Spiders) the beginning for a short
course of study or collateral reading for the individual pupil
particularly interested in spiders!