hodge] NATURE-STUDY AND SCIENCE TEACHIXG 19 



and tackle it for a while. The farther I go, the more it is born in 

 upon me that our exigency is grave, and that science teachers and 

 specialists of every grade must get together and all put their 

 shoulders to the wheel. For such united effort this Society now 

 affords an adequate, working organization, in which, I hope, 

 teachers in primary and grammar grades, high-schools, normal 

 schools, colleges and universities may unite on absolutely equal 

 footing. 



Sir William Macdonald is now devoting his time and his millions 

 to elementary, rural scientific education. Some years ago he 

 began bv endowing scientific research in McGill University. I had 

 long wished to ask him why he had turned from university re- 

 search to elementary science, and, being at his house in Montreal 

 recentlv, I surprised him with the question. His eyes twinkled 

 as he replied: "The younger the better, the younger the 

 better. If science is worth anything, the younger we teach it the 

 better. Yes," he continued, "I did begin with science in the 

 Universitv, and I have no fault to find with that; but I soon 

 realized that if we made science mean anything much to the 

 whole people, we must begin with +he boys and girls. The 

 Catholic Church is the wisest organization in the world and it 

 says: "Give me a child till he is twelve, and you may do with 

 him what you please after that? We ought to be as wise for 

 science." 



Fellow teachers in science, how do we meet such a test as this? 

 Where is the body of method and matter upon which we agree as 

 well and teach as patiently and successfully for science as do our 

 Catholic friends for religion? From what an incubus of ignorance 

 and all its consequent folly and misery would this free us as a 

 people — preventable disease and invalidism, patent and quack 

 medicines, faith cures and unchristian science, end, we might add, 

 if everyone knew enough to do his part, preventable insect 

 ravages due largely to ignorant destruction of birds and other 

 insectivorous animals. 



When we consider how fundamental and how universally 

 needed this elementary struggle for truth is, we must admit that 

 all our endowments for higher science, great as they are, and all 

 our expenditure for public education, large as this is, are in- 

 adequate to cope with the present situation. We need, as we 

 need nothing else, on our side of the line, some man of wealth who 



