October 2011 Print

Fr. Hervé de la Tour, FSSPX

Recently some children went on a field trip which left them with memories which they will cherish for a long time. As they were kayaking in the ocean, they found themselves in the midst of a colony of sea otters. These likeable creatures were swimming on their backs a few feet from the children, either eating seashells, grooming their paws or simply fooling around in the water. One of them even tried to get into one of the boats! One could tell from the happiness of the children that they were having a wonderful learning experience.

Dr. John Senior explains in his book The Restoration of Christian Culture that the rediscovery of nature is a preliminary indispensable condition for all intellectual formation. “There is no amount of reading, remedial or advanced, no amount of study of any kind, that can substitute for the fact that we are a rooted species, rooted through our senses in the air, water, earth and fire of elemental experience. When you plant even the best children’s literature in even the brightest young minds, if the soul of those minds has not been richly manured by natural experience, you don’t get the fecund fruit of literature which is imagination, but infertile fantasy. Children need direct, everyday experience of fields, forests, streams, lakes, oceans, grass and ground.”¹ Nature study should have a prominent place both in our homes and in our schools. Anyone who has taken children for a walk in the school backyard can testify to the benefits of such an activity. For instance, a teacher took a class in September to watch sunflowers. As the students were observing them, several black-capped chickadees landed on the flowers to eat their seeds. You should have heard the gasps and seen the wonder in the eyes of these little girls! But nature study should begin at home, and we hope that the present article will help parents to lay its foundation in their children’s souls.

St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the world of nature is the world most proportioned to our intellect. The study of what is familiar to us like the clouds and the rain, the rhythm of the seasons, the leaves of the trees in our garden, etc., is the study of the easiest and most natural object of knowledge.

Experience of nature is a prerequisite to any teaching since, accord­ing to Aristotle, nothing is in our intellect unless it was first in our external senses. And let us point out the importance of the sense of touch in Thomistic philosophy. By means of touch we are awakened to the reality of things about us. Is the surface of this leaf rough or smooth? Does the frog feel slimy in your hand? Etc. The richer our experiences concerning nature, the better will be our understanding of the various subjects of our curriculum.

Let us first consider the ends of nature study. We will then consider its means. The ends of nature study are conveniently reduced to three: 1) The immediate end is to know and love the world which surrounds us. 2) The intermediate end is to arouse wonder and thereby to acquire a contemplative mind. 3) The ultimate end is to praise God since the order and the beauty we see in nature come from its Creator. Let us study these three ends more in detail.

The immediate end of nature is the study, knowledge and love of all the beautiful and wonderful things which are within our reach. Its spirit should be inquiry, discovery and delight. An old teacher used to say: “In the early years we are not to teach nature as science, we are not to teach it primarily for method or for drill: we are to teach it for loving–and this is nature-study. On these points I make no compromise.”

Of course, the child needs guidance in this domain. Ideally, this should start at home. The parents should be the first ones to open the world of nature to their children, saying at the right moment “look” and “listen.” But this presupposes that they themselves have looked and listened for years. Remember the walks St. Therese of the Child Jesus took with her father and how it awakened her love for flowers.

The intermediate end of nature study is the wonder aroused by the observation of the simple and familiar things of everyday life: the red leaves of the maples in autumn, the squirrels storing acorns in preparation for the winter, the snow geese flying over our head on their migration, etc. Reflection is stimulated through thoughtful questioning. The aim, let us repeat it, is to develop the contemplative faculty of the child and its capacity to “sympathize” with the world God has created.

Fr. Edward Leen was a Holy Ghost Father like Archbishop Lefebvre. He wrote a beautiful book about education and one passage especially applies to our subject:

How much the toilsome struggle upwards of the young towards the true good would be facilitated were they taught a little contemplation! To be trained to pause and to admire the beauty that is spread around them in such profusion in the works of nature and in the works of art, in sounds, and in phrase, in lines and in colors, would have a great power to uplift their souls and lure these souls to the ways of moral beauty. A great enemy of the noble life is the senseless speed of a mechanized existence that allows no time for the enjoyment of the pure and chastening delight that springs from the contemplation of the beautiful. It needs to be understood by those who devote themselves to the task of education, that appreciation of the beautiful has relevance to a life that is good.…One who is insensitive to the beauty of the things will easily content himself with the ordinary and the mediocre in conduct and spiritual aspirations.²

Thirdly, the ultimate end of nature study is to sing the glory of God. Anyone who has ever gazed at the stars on a clear night has been filled with a sense of awe–“Dear Lord, I thank Thee for having created such a wonderful universe! If the stars are already so beautiful that they fill my heart with joy, how much more beautiful Thou must be, Thou who art their Creator!” This is the spirit of the saints.

Listen to the enthusiasm of St. Bernard:

Consider first of all the creation of the universe, and the disposition and ordering of its various parts. What a display of power in the production of a world out of nothingness! What wisdom in the collocation of the different orders of creatures! What benignity in their manifold combination! Reflect on the multitude and magnitude of the things created by almighty power, how wisely they are all distributed, with how much goodness they have been compounded, the highest being united to the lowest, with a charity as amiable as it is admirable. For to this slime of the earth has been added the vital force, as for instance, in the trees where its presence is manifested in the beauty of the foliage, in the brilliancy of the flowers, and in the sweetness and wholesomeness of the fruit.

Now let us consider the means to achieve these ends. The first one is the direct observation of the object of the lesson, either outside (nature walks) or inside (either the children bring the pine cone, the grasshopper, the feathers, etc., or the teacher or parent brings enough specimens for everyone).

The child must have under his eyes the actual object so that he may observe it, handle it, examine its properties and becomes thoroughly acquainted with it, instead of just reading information about it in a textbook. There are so many things children may observe: flowers, seeds, insects, leaves, minerals. In one school, a teacher was able to identify 25 different species of trees in the surrounding area. Every child should be able to name the trees he sees in his own garden and the birds he hears outside his window. It is through taking regular nature walks that one learns to know the whole round of the year in his particular region and to catch the spirit of the seasons. After a few years of practice, one is able to know when this particular flower blooms or where to find this particular bird.

The second means is skillful questioning. These questions are in fact suggestions for personal investigation. We want as much as possible to encourage the child to go on a “voyage of discovery,” according to the expression of Mother Stuart. For example, if the children are observing various leaves they have collected (oak, maple, pine) here are some simple questions to help their investigation: “How are the leaves alike? How are they different? Is the leaf simple or compound? How many parts can you see (stalk, midrib, veins)? Do some leaves feel rough to the touch? Do some, when crushed, have a fragrance you can smell? etc.”

Some questions will lead to admiration: “Did you know that some trees can live up to 2,000 years? How do the leaves of the tree know when it is time to change color in the fall? Do you realize how many animals live in trees (birds, squirrels, insects), etc.” The interest of the child must be aroused so that he will start asking his own questions, like when they realize that the summer birds (orioles, warblers, swallows, etc.) are leaving: “How can a bird find its way through thousands of miles of land or sea? How does it eat while it is flying? Why do they go so far away? etc.”

The third means is to keep a personal notebook where the child will record his observations and sketch what he has seen. Nature study gives the child many beautiful things to draw. It brings the eye and mind together and makes the hand the organ of both. It teaches the child to express his response to God’s creation through writing in his own “nature journal,” activity which is not limited to school time but can be continued during the week-end or the summer. It is a sign that we have “lit a fire” in the soul of a student when he proudly shows you the pages of his notebook which he has filled during his free time, not because it was an assignment, but just because he enjoyed doing it.

The explorers of old had logbooks. Our children need to be taught how to keep their “discovery notebooks”: Here is an example. “September 7, during my walk I saw 5 turkeys, 3 different kinds of frogs, a wheelbug, a stinkbug and a soldier beetle. There were some black-eyed Susans in bloom (sketch). I observed the acorns of the bur-oak (sketch) and the seed pod of the milkweed (sketch). I heard a woodpecker and a quail.” Nature journaling is a wonderful way for the child to withdraw from the artificial world of man and contemplate the natural world of God. It teaches the child to be still, quiet, receptive so as to be able to see and hear. It is a means for integrating poetry, art, science, and religion.

Let us finally reply to the main objection from parents and teachers: “I don’t know how to teach nature study.” We reply that it is a good starting point. We must admit that there are so many mysteries in the natural world, so many unknown domains. It is good for us to have this feeling of awe in front of the vastness of God’s universe. But then the next point should be: “Let us explore together.” The parent who confesses his ignorance but at the same manifests interest (“Let us find out what is the name of this bird we have seen in our garden for the past week!”) establishes a bond with his child which will facilitate nature study. Instead of being an expert teaching a novice, the parent becomes a fellow-investigator. Both share the joys of discovery. God is surprising us with so many beautiful things everyday of the year!

There is now a huge amount of resources on nature study. The Field Guides (Audubon, Peterson, Golden, Lone Pine, etc.) for mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, trees, flowers, mushrooms, etc., are available everywhere, and every home should have some of them for identification. The Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife is a great buy since we can find everything in one book. There are so many books we could recommend, but our two favorites are Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock and Type Lessons in Nature Study and Literature by Ann McGovern. There are some interesting ideas in Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie. Of course the books of Jean Henri Fabre are great for introducing students to observation. There are also books about the flowers named after Our Lady which provide us with wonderful connections between religion and science. Try Mary’s Flowers: Garden, Legends and Meditations by Virginia Krynow.

We just have at this point to quote again Fr. Leen:

The neglect of nature-study in boys’ schools is much to be deplored. They grow up in the midst of the beauties of nature and never observe them. The love and study and contemplation of the fair forms and colours that God pours forth about them with such lavish hand, would give them constant interest and enjoyment. They live for years in the midst of a beauty offering every degree of variety as the seasons change, and few of them ever taste the delight of tracing the lovely lines of a leafless tree silhouetted against the steely grey of a winter sky at eventide.

The great evil of our days, the evil which is the root of many others, is that men and women have lost the art of finding joy and the resources of life in what is at their door. They are not trained to find satisfaction in the simple and wonderful things that God has made for their delight. They have eyes and they do not see what is made to gladden the eye and elevate the soul. They can neither enjoy themselves sanely nor entertain themselves in a natural way.

They know not how to be still. They rush from the natural delights and pleasures which God offers them in nature, to the artificial and “canned” entertainment prepared for them by cynical and commercial-minded men. And to the education they have received must be assigned the fault.

Yes, parents and teachers must help children to know and love nature and thereby grow in admiration of God’s perfections and in gratitude for His goodness to us. When a child sees the vast number of seeds falling from the trees in autumn, he will learn about God’s Providence. When he listens to the melodious songs of the birds in the spring, he will thank God for providing this enjoyment for him. When he sees the sun rising and setting day after day and night following day with wonderful regularity, he will appreciate God’s order manifested in His laws.

Here are some simple activities which could be done at home to awaken an interest in the natural world: Plant and care for a small garden, observing the growth of the vegetables and how they must be protected from insects and excessive cold or heat. Have a few pet animals such as dogs, cats, chickens, goats, pigs, rabbits, learning how to feed them and care for them. Set up backyard feeders during the winter to observe birds (we identified 20 different species at the feeders of the District House). On cloudless nights, identify the most common constellations with the help of a monthly sky chart. Collect insects like beetles, grasshoppers, butterflies, etc., identifying them and learning about their habits.

 

We will finish with a quote from the great educator Mother Stuart:

The love of nature is a great source of happiness for children, happiness of the best kind in taking possession of a world that seems to be in many ways designed especially for them. It brings their minds to a place where many ways meet; to the confines of science, for they want to know the reasons of things; to the confines of art, for what they can understand they will strive to interpret and express; to the confines of worship, for a child’s soul, hushed in wonder, is very near to God.³

Fr. Hervé de la Tour was ordained in 1981. He was editor of the popular Catholic Family magazine, which he published while serving in Australia. Father’s articles on education have appeared in previous issues of The Angelus.

 

¹ This quote was extracted from a conference given by the Dominican Sisters.

² This quote and the following are from the “What Is Education?”

³ This quote is from The Education of Catholic Girls.