NA TURE- S TUD Y A ND SCIENCE NO TES 245 



put them in a cool place in the cellar where they kept moist. This is only 

 a suggestion of the possibilities along this line as to the variety of common 

 things that could be utilized for a school garden in winter at a small ex- 

 pense." [From a letter by Supt. L. A. Hatch, DeKalb, 111., Feb. 2, 1907.] 



Health Rules for Children. "Responsibility of Teachers for the Health 

 of their Children," is the title of a recent number of the Hampton Leaflets. 

 It contains a brief and practical summary of the points which every teacher 

 should have in mind if she wishes to safeguard the health of young children. 

 The following are examples of the rules for school children : Do not put 

 pencils, money, pins or anything into the mouth except food and drink. 

 Do not swap apple cores, candy, chewing gum, half eaten food, whistles, 

 bean blowers or anything that is put into the mouth. 



Time spent in the care of the body brings quick and great returns. The 

 instruction in regard to health which a teacher can give her pupils secures 

 to them that strength and ability to apply their forces, without which all 

 other teaching falls far short of its aim. 



Ether and Strawberries. A French experimenter has shown that straw- 

 berry plants subjected to ether before flowering will flower earlier and bear 

 more fruit. It is well known that ether will force certain greenhouse 

 plants into forming flowers early. 



Agricultural Aspect of Primary Education. "Nature-study and elemen- 

 tarv agriculture are subjects which must be taught in harmonious relation- 

 ship to systematically encourage the habit of accurate observation — to 

 vitalize the mental and reasoning powers of the child. All animate nature 

 appeals to children when directed to it in a sympathetic and attractive 

 form. By this early awakening we stimulate and bring into existence the 

 child's love for country life and its avocations. Shakespeare reminds us 

 there are "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, 

 and good in everything." In your hands lies the power to create a lasting 

 public sentiment and respect for farming operations, and thus become an 

 unseen influence in our national prosperity. Professor C. Lloyd Morgan, 

 the principal of University College, Bristol, stated in a recent paper on 

 "Xature-study in Elementary Education": — "I am so fully convinced of 

 the supreme importance of training the faculties of observation and the 

 habit of sensory alertness in the early plastic and impressionable period of 

 childhood — I hold so strongly the belief in the desirability of cultivating 

 the sensory memory and storing the mind with faithful images of natural 

 objects and scenes — that I am disposed to claim for nature-study a fore- 

 most place in the early stages of the education of all." What are we to 

 understand by nature-study ? "A process by which simple natural objects 

 acquire meaning." We may assuredly assume that nature-study is the 

 outcome of object teaching, the gradual growth of mental faculty, and the 

 displacement of the old and detestable, mechanical memory method. It 

 directs a child's mind towards the importance of the instructive love and 

 study of nature. The principle of utility is effectually insinuated at this 

 stage, and lends strength to a subsequent feeling of contentment with out- 

 door studies and pursuits. 



