1905] Nature Study — No. 21. 209 



NATURE STUDY— No. XXI. 



Nature Study in the Schools of Nova Scotia. 

 (A Historical Sketch.) 



By Dr. a. H. MacKay, Superintendent of Education for Nova Scotia, 



Halifax, N.S. 



A systematic course of oral and objective study was outlined 

 in the first conspectus of a course for the schools of the province, 

 which was presented to the Provincial Educational Association 

 at Truro on the 14th day of July, 1880, by the Principal at 

 that time of the public schools and Academy at Pictou. This 

 was done on the invitation of Dr. David Allison, then Superin- 

 tendent of Education for the province. After due discussion the 

 conspectus was referred to a committee for simplification and pre- 

 sentation at the convention held the next year, where it was fur- 

 ther discussed and passed, practically in the form in which it was 

 soon after prescribed by the Council of Public Instruction for the 

 first eight grades of the public school system, known as the com- 

 mon school grades, in the year 1881. 



In 1887 "The Educational Review," which has ever since 

 been continuously published at St. John, N.B., was started with 

 the object of developing the Nature Study side of the course, as 

 well as serving incidentally as a teachers' organ for the Atlantic 

 provinces of Canada. Illustrated lessons on natural objects were 

 prepared, the most continuous being the series under the title 

 " Ferndale School." The whole environment of common school 

 life was more or less covered, instruction tor teachers on various 

 subjects, including even the evening sky, which was illustrated by 

 a series of star maps. The Ferndale series dealt with the biolog- 

 ical side mainly ; but other pages covered mineralogy, physical 

 phenomena of common range, and so forth, before any general 

 effort appears to have been made in the educational press of the 

 other provinces of Canada. 



A little later, 1901, a Science building was erected in connec- 

 tion with the Provincial Normal School; and the Pt'ovincial School 

 of Agriculture founded by the Government a few years earlier, 

 was then more completely affiliated with it. An extra course of 

 two years in the sciences underlying the art of agriculture was 



