3©2 THE NA TU RE-STUD Y RE VIE W [2 . 9 - DK c, 1906 



DIRECT METHODS OF STUDYING NATURE 



BY LILIAN J. CLARKE, B.Sc. F.L.S. 



[Editorial Note. — The article reprinted below from The Windsor Magazine 

 ■was sent by Professor Miall, of Yorkshire college, who remarks that this is 

 a good sample of how some of the best teachers in England work directly with 

 the actually living things, rather than with books. 



Some of the work described is similar to that done in some of the best organized 

 school-gardens in the United States and Canada. All the experiments are often 

 done in our high-school botany. In fact this is work done by high-school pupils 

 and in America would be scheduled as botany, with the outdoor work as sup- 

 p'ementary nature-study. 



The original article had numerous illustrations which it is not possible to 

 reproduce here.] 



The nature-study work at the James Allen's Girls' School. Dulwich, 

 has been arranged so that the giils are encouraged to work for them- 

 selves, and study Nature by means of their own observations and 

 experiments in garden, class-room and country. By these means 

 they gain knowledge direct, and not from text-books, and it is found 

 that knowledge thus directly obtained is of far more value to them 

 than that acquired by listening to other people, or by reading in books 

 what others have seen and done. 



The school is fortunate in possessing a large garden, and for many 

 years the girls have been allowed to own plots in it and be responsible 

 for looking after them. 



It would perhaps be well to state that the school is an endowed 

 secondary school, and the girls are not being trained in it for any 

 particular profession. 



The special gardens were first started in connection with the plant 

 nature-study lessons in the class-rooms, and only a few were owned 

 at first by the girls; but as fresh branches of the subject were studied, 

 the need for more gardens arose, and the head-mistress allowed more 

 ground to be "annexed," and at present more than 140 girls own 

 plots. Some of these plots are "order beds," in which only 

 plants belonging to one family are grown, and some are devoted to 

 carrying on experimental work in connection with the visits of insects 

 and pollination, the production of starch by green plants in sunlight, 

 and so on. Every year it is found that something more is needed in 

 the school-gardens, and every year something is added. Gardening 



