Comstock, Anna Botsford
"Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents" by Anna Botsford Comstock is an educational handbook written in the early 20th century. It offers a comprehensive, field-centered approach to teaching nature-study, combining philosophy, method, and abundant lesson material on animals, plants, and earth and sky for teachers and parents. The work emphasizes direct observation, outdoor exploration, and joyful curiosity over rote facts or drill.The opening of the book recounts how a Cornell-led nature-study movement arose from concerns about rural life and agriculture, developed through school experiments, children’s clubs, and widely distributed leaflets, and culminated in this volume that rewrites and expands those materials for broader use. Comstock explains her aim to support untrained teachers with a two-part lesson method (a “teacher’s story” plus guided observations), an informal style, and a focus on biological topics suited to everyday fieldwork. She lays out practical guidance on when and how to teach, the value of saying “I do not know,” the role of lenses and museum specimens, humane attitudes toward life and death, and keeping field notebooks and organizing excursions. She also shows how nature-study enriches language, drawing, geography, history, and arithmetic, clarifies its relation to gardening and agriculture, and encourages student clubs, before advising how to use the book. The section then turns to “Animal Life,” beginning bird study with the familiar hen a…
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