Most of those who are involved with education today rather sadly conclude that children are becoming increasingly limited in their powers of observation. In certain fields, children are keenly awake, but they are frequently blind and deaf to much that used to delight most of us when we were young. One can be put to shame by a child of six or seven when there are questions of technology and modern life, but the average child of today has no interest for trees, flowers, or birds, and passes by many aspects of nature with unseeing eyes.

Topics include: The Training of Observation; The Senses; Observation and Thinking; The Activity of Thinking; and the Practical Value of Thinking.