Historical Studies of 'Collection' in Science Education

Abstract

During the period from 1872 (the 5th year of Meiji) to the present, the collection in the Japanese science education has been the method of seience which has continued from the last years of the Meiji Era (1868‥‥‥1912) I would like to put together the history of the collection as follows : (l) The concept of the collection was to give the pupils object lessons and to have them appreciate nature. (2) the aim of the collection was to collect living things for using them immediately in class and to make specimens for subsequent materials and collecting itself. (3) On Sundays or during the summer vacation the pupils had to collect living things as many as possible for their assignment and it occasioned the pupils the competition of collecting too many rare ones. In the seicnce education, therefore, the collection lost its original significance and resulted in the ruin of nature. (4) The collection reached a peak between 1907 and 1914, around l935 and around 1955. The collection was encouraged in order to have the pupils study creatures, and appreciate the beauty of nature, hoping that it would be good for the health and be a sound hobby. Eventually the encouragement of the collection led to losing the balance of nature. (5) For a long time, the collection had chiefly been aiming at analyzing creatures and investigating the ones in the vicinity of the pupils, but afterwards it developed into the study of ecology. (6) At first the pupils were merely collecting living things. Before long, however, the pupils started to observe the environments and the lives of creatures and later they collected them and came to raise them。(7) Even though the idea that we should observe the living things in nature, the living things and nature, and the mutual relationship of the creatures had existed long since, it could hardly be adopted。Quite recentry, however, the iea has come to be adopted. The collect10n finally brought forth the idea that nature abounded in living things boundlessly, and they were the things of our own and we were allowed to collect them limitlessly. The desire to collect is the children's instinct and the gateway to curiocity, but we teachers should nurture the idea scientifically and let the pupils know the importance of the lives of creatures.