THE STUDY OF LOCALITY. 733 



were asleep beneath a garment of snow and ice three feet thick, as we 

 found by actual measurement. 



Hitherto I have been speaking of the study of natural history. I 

 shall now speak of the way we studied culture history: the history of 

 man, his struggles and progress. 



As the reader will have gathered, the study of nature in this school 

 was by direct observation. Books were used, to be sure. The school 

 library contained many books about nature, and the readers used were 

 Wood's ' Natural History Headers/ But the books were not the center 

 of the study ; they were merely accessory. 



As with natural history, so with culture history. We began by 

 observation. To get a large view of their native place, some six outings 

 were spent in compassing the city on foot. Practical elementary les- 

 sons in surveying and mapping to scale were given, beginning with the 

 schoolroom. Then a map was made of the city and its environs, and 

 the course followed in the walks indicated, as well as the topography 

 and the important buildings and public works. Visits were paid, 

 mostly in the winter, to various institutions : to Parliament and City 

 Hall and Market; to the shops of the jeweler, furrier, picture dealer, 

 florist and maker of musical instruments; to the various factories and 

 offices to see men wrestling with resistant matter in its various forms 

 of wood, tin, copper, iron, stone; the lumberman, the joiner, the turner, 

 the carver, the stone molder, the mason, the bridge-builder, the diver, 

 the blacksmith, the printer, the bookbinder. We also attended the 

 Ottawa Valley ploughing match just before winter set in, and visited 

 the Experimental Farm at all seasons. 



Meanwhile, the history of our city and district from the days of 

 the sturdy backwoodsman to the present was unfolded and maps were 

 made of the county and district. The industries of the locality were 

 studied as conditioned by its peculiar resources in soil, timber, minerals 

 and water-power. Then the early history of the various provinces and 

 of the Atlantic states was narrated. The gist was given (with occa- 

 sional reading of the more interesting parts) of many works relating 

 to the discovery, exploration and settlement of the various parts of the 

 American continent by the races of Europe. A map was drawn and so 

 marked and colored as to give a bird's-eye picture of the course of dis- 

 covery and settlement. In another map the native districts of the 

 Indian aborigines were indicated, and something was told of Indian 

 character and legend. Here again the school library was a valuable 

 adjunct in the work, and sometimes the boys brought from their homes 

 books bearing upon the subject in hand. 



The parents have freely expressed their appreciation of the methods 

 of the school. 



I have tried to describe the value of this natural education, yet I 

 "have scarcely touched upon one aspect — perhaps most important of all, 



