SINCLAIR] 



DEFIXITE PROBLEMS IN NATURE-STUDY 2 1 



gold-fish raising. But I think I have said enough to show how full of 

 interest gold-fish breeding is, not only from the commercial or aesthetic 

 point of view, but from the purely scientific standpoint. A most cas- 

 ual glance shows it to be full of problems which have ever attracted 

 the serious attention of biological investigators. 



I have just now no available statistics in regard to the output of 

 gold-fish, but the number produced must be millions upon millions. 

 It shows the power of children in the nation, for they are par excellence 

 the customers of these establishments. It is said that in the old 

 regime, even in years when a famine was stalking in the land and 

 hundreds were dying from starvation, there was a tolerable trade in 

 gold-fish, proving the truth of an old proverb : "Crying children and 

 landlords must not be disputed." Landlords are not now tyrannical 

 as of yore, but children have not abated their power in the slightest 

 degree, and that they do not get the moon seems simply to be clue to 

 the fact that it involves an impossible feat for their parents. 



DEFINITE PROBLEMS IN NATURE-STUDY 



BY S. B. SINCLAIR, Ph.D. 

 Vice-Principal Ottawa Normal School 



One of the chief characteristics of the modern disease of neuras- 

 thenia or over-fatigue is that the individual becomes morbidly ambi- 

 tious, sees so many things to do that he does not know which to begin 

 first, and when he does attempt anything is overwhelmed by the idea 

 that he ought to be doing something else. 



The student who begins nature-study late in life is likely to find 

 himself in a somewhat similar predicament. With but little time at 

 his disposal he is suddenly faced with an almost infinite variety of 

 interesting topics each demanding immediate attention, and offering 

 unexplored realms of investigation, which at the end of a lifetime of 

 persevering toil would present more unanswered problems than at the 

 beginning. For such an one there is probably no better method to 

 adopt than to select some quite limited area, hitherto unexamined and 

 to confine oneself to a simple and easy problem until it has been 

 mastered. In this way while the general incidental observation of 

 nature goes on as before, a scientific habit of study is being formed 

 which leaves a residuum of knowledge and insight which could never 

 have been obtained by haphazard work. Such problems lie within 



