The nature study movement (alternatively, Nature Study or nature-study) was a popular education movement in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nature study attempted to reconcile scientific investigation with spiritual, personal experiences gained from interaction with the natural world. Led by progressive educators and naturalists such as Anna Botsford Comstock, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Louis Agassiz and Wilbur S. Jackman, nature study changed the way science was taught in schools by emphasizing learning from tangible objects, something that was embodied by the movement's mantra "study nature, not books."