1905] Nature Study — No. 20. 153 



NATURE STUDY— No. XX. 



Nature Study at the Macdonald Institute. 

 By D. J. Doyle, Guelph, Ont. 



Perhaps no more important educational problem has been 

 attempted in recent years than that which was presented in the 

 Nature Study department of the Macdonald Institute at Guelph 

 to the late Dr. W. H. Muldrew, whose unexpected death on 

 Oct. 7th, 1904, at the very begmning ot the first term, in which 

 a regular Nature Study class had been enrolled, has proved a 

 serious loss not only to the Macdonald Institute, but to educa- 

 tional progress generally in Canada. Prof. Lochhead, who next 

 assumed charge of the Nature Study department, setting to work 

 with a definite aim, has ably carried forward the work of his 

 predecessor. 



Regarding the psychological value of the new study in the 

 development of child intellect, there is, I think, a general measure 

 of unanimity among educational workers. It is when we turn 

 from this phase ot the question to the necessity of the teacher's 

 knowledge of Nature and the simpler elements of Science extend- 

 ing far beyond tliat of the child, in order that the efforts of the 

 latter may be best stimulated and directed, that the first note of 

 discord arises ; and we find our educators quietly taking sides. 

 On the one hand are arrayed those who assert that a knowledge 

 of child-nature is by al^ odds the primary requisite for the equip- 

 ment ot the teacher of Nature Study. On the other — and here 

 are embattled the staff of the Macdonald institute — stand those 

 who believe that a knowledge of child-nature, while an element of 

 very great importance in itself, must still yield precedence to a 

 knowledge ot that other nature which is to be met with in the 

 out-of-doors, and upon the regular working of whose laws the 

 welfare of the human race inevitably depends. 



Imbued with this conviction, the staff early directed their 

 efforts towards placing the students as much as possible in 

 direct contact with Nature, and particularly with those objects and 

 phenomena which lay readiest to hand. This was secured in two 

 ways, (i) by field excursions, (2) by laboratory work and lectures. 

 The field work proved in many ways perhaps the most in- 



