Growing Sympathy for the "zoological aspect" : Primary School Nature Study, c. 1905-1960

Abstract

Biological ideas shaped cultural attitudes to animals in the first half of the twentieth century, and New Zealand’s primary school nature study programmes prior to 1960 provide insight into this. It is argued here that nature study reflected not only moral and religious rationale, but the “new natural history” and “new biology” of this era. Significantly, biological ideas enabled the rationalisation and integration of sympathetic and utilitarian perspectives, especially as regards farmed animals. This paper concludes that nature study reflected, and helped to foster, a fundamental appreciation of human-animal kinship, and support for ethical animal husbandry and the fledgling animal welfare movement.