mackay] NATURE-STUDY IN NOVA SCOTIA 149 



However, it still deserves a place in this journal, where it will be read by 

 many, especially in the United States, who do not see the Naturalist.] 



A systematic course of oral and objective study was outlined 

 in the first conspectus of a course for the schools of the province, 

 which was presented to the Provincial Educational Association 

 at Truro on the 14th day of July, 1880, by the Principal at that 

 time of the public schools and the Historical Academy of Pictou. 

 This was done on the invitation of Dr. David Allison, then Super- 

 intendent of Education for the province. After due discussion 

 the conspectus was referred to a committee for amplification and 

 presentation at the convention held next year, where it was 

 further discussed and passed practically in the form in which it 

 was soon after prescribed by the Council of Public Instruction 

 for the first eight grades of the public school system, known as 

 the common school grades. 



In 1887 The Educational Review, which has ever since been 

 continuously published at Saint John, N. B., was started with the 

 object of developing the nature-study side of the course, as well 

 as serving incidentally as a teachers' organ for the Atlantic Prov- 

 inces of Canada. Illustrated lessons on natural objects were pre- 

 pared, the most continuous being the series under the title " Fern- 

 dale School." The whole environment of common-school life 

 was more or less covered, instruction for teachers on various 

 subjects including even the evening sky which was illustrated 

 by a series of star maps. The Ferndale series dealt with the 

 biological side mainly ; but other papers covered mineralogy, 

 physical phenomena of common range, and so forth, before any 

 similar effort appears to have been made in any other province 

 of Canada. 



A little later, 1 901, a science building was erected in connection 

 with the Provincial Normal School, and the Provincial School of 

 Agriculture, founded by the Government a few years earlier, was 

 then more completed affiliated with it. An extra course of two 

 years in the sciences underlying the art of agriculture was given 

 to teachers who could take this extra time, for which a special 

 diploma and scholarship were awarded, and an additional provin- 

 cial grant of $100 given when engaged in teaching in an efficient 

 rural school. This idea was carried out in a fuller manner by Dr. 

 Jas. \V. Robertson, director of the Sir William C. Macdonald 

 Rural School Fund, when $175,000 was appropriated to build the 



