LOCH UK A I) 



CANADIAN DEPARTMENT 249 



CANADIAN DEPARTMENT 



EDITED BY PROFESSOR W. LOCHHEAD 

 Macdonald College, St. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec 



[All communications relating to nature-study (in the broadest sense) in Canada 

 should be sent to the editor of this department at above address.] 



A SCHOOL OF AFFAIRS 



I like Professor Bailey's "School of Affairs." 1 It appears to be 

 a most rational method of educating rural children, for the activities 

 of the school district are made the means of training. I have all 

 along felt that the term nature-study was too narrow, and that it took 

 for granted (suggested at any rate) that the objects studied should be 

 mainly plants, animals and rocks. These do not make up the home 

 world of the country child, neither do the interests of the country 

 child belong entirely to the field of nature. The cheese-factory, the 

 creamery, the silo, the farm drainage, the construction of roads, the 

 brick-yard, the quarry, the orchard, the fruit evapoiator, the cement 

 works, the making of concrete, the building of bams and stables, the 

 water supply, the grist mill, the foundry, the breeds of cattle, sheep 

 and swine, crop rotation and commercial fertilizers, etc., — all these 

 are of interest to the child at some stage of his school life, because 

 these are the activities of his environment and have become "part of 

 him." 



This "School of Affairs," too, is supremely natural, for the train- 

 ing received there has direct reference to the needs and conditions of 

 the neighborhood. The children of such a school are brought into 

 direct touch with things and events close at hand. They get that 

 education which is described by Dr. Jas. YV. Robertson as a series 

 of experiences leading up to the possession of certain powers — ability 

 to do work, intelligence regarding the common things of rural life, 

 and though tfulness for others' welfare. 



The school-garden works wonders, but the broader agency of the 

 "school of affairs" vitalizes the whole school course. J twill be con- 



"See "The Outlook to Nature," Chapter III. 



