利伯蒂·贝利的自然伦理观与自然教育理念

Liberty H.Bailey’s Natural Ethics and Natural Education Idea

利伯蒂·贝利是美国十九世纪末二十世纪初的一位著名园艺学家、植物学家。他关于人与自然间关系的思考曾启发了利奥波德:他主要基于演化论提出了生物中心论,并主张人类作为演化过程的积极参与者,应民主地、道德地对待自然的其他部分。在领导自然课运动时,他提出诠释自然的方式不只有科学一种,诗意地诠释也应当被允许;自然课的目的并非科学教育,而是培养学生对自然的共情与热爱;为此他主张以博物学为手段。他的自然课理念招致了许多批评,体现了当时美国教育者对自然和科学的不同看法。

Liberty Hyde Bailey was a famous horticulturalist and botanist in late 19th and early 20th centuries America.He served as the dean of the Cornell University Agricultural College and led the Nature Study movement in American primary and secondary schools and the National Commission on Country Life.His reflection on the relationship between humans and nature has inspired Aldo Leopold:he explicitly put forward the bio-centric theory mainly based on evolution theory,insisting that humans,as the positive partaker in the evolution process,should treat other parts of nature democratically and morally.In leading the Nature Study movement,he proposed that science should not be the only one way to interpret nature,and that the poetic interpretation should also be allowed.The purpose of nature study is not science education,but to cultivate students’sympathy and love for nature so that they could live a richer life and get a sense of protection of nature,for which he advocated natural history as the means.Bailey’s idea of nature study attracted a lot of criticism at that time,reflecting the conflict and tension among the American educators’views on nature and science.