1906] Nature Study No. 39. 193 



NATURE-STUDY No. XXXI X. 



Agencies for the Promotion of Nature-Study in Canada. 

 By Prof. \Y. Lochhead, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Que. 



It may appear strange to some that the Nature-Study Move- 

 ment should be able within a few years to gather the strength 

 and take the hold that it now has in many of the provinces. 

 While there are many persons opposed to assigning to Nature- 

 Study the most prominent place in the time-table of the junior 

 classes in our public schools, there are but few who oppose the 

 study of nature by the children. 



It may be truly said in the first place that the time was ripe 

 for such a movement. For generations the natural sympathies of 

 the child towards nature were smothered ; and as a result he saw 

 but little that was beautiful in the world about him. For genera- 

 tions the child was educated as a thing apart from his surroundings. 

 Educationists had forgotten, or were ignorant of, several 

 pedagogic principles, viz: the senses are the avenues to the mind, 

 and the sense perceptions give rise to definite knowledge in the 

 mind Nihil in intelleclu quod non prins in sensu new thoughts 

 can be comprehended only by the help of old thoughts ; the 

 greater the stock of ideas possessed by the child, the greater the 

 progress the child will make in the acquisition of knowledge or 

 new ideas ; the best development is self-development, by the 

 encouragement of the activities of the child in the investigations 

 of the problems presented to it ; and education does not consist 

 in the imparting of information by the teacher and its reception by 

 the pupil. According to the modern idea it is all important that 

 the child should have clear percepts of the things that constitute 

 its environment, for these percepts form the basis for thought and 

 further educational development. 



But, while the schools were doing unsatisfactory work, there 

 were several agencies in operation, which, unconsciously in some 

 instances, were performing important educational service by en- 

 couraging many to undertake the study of natural history. The 

 first of these were the Natural History and Field Naturalist Socie- 

 ties the Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, Wellington, being perhaps 



