NEWS NOTES 165 



for teaching, inspiration, and the growing of plants for distribution to other 

 schools. The forty teachers who conduct the garden work in the elementary- 

 schools meet at this center once a month for conference, instruction, and plant 

 material. Connected with this garden is a bungalow for collections, labora- 

 tories, and class room, a lath-house, potting -house, propagation yard, compost- 

 ing yard, and a model home is to be constructed. In the garden itself are 

 plots for wild flowers, iris, vegetables, bush fruits, fruit trees, grapes, etc., also 

 a rockery, and water garden. When all this plan is finally realized Los Angeles 

 will have an ideal center for conducting city garden work. 



The people of Portland, Oregon, are making ready to give the teachers of the 

 N. E. A. a cordial welcome. A rose carnival is to be held for their benefit and 

 every teacher will be given a rose bouquet every morning of the meeting; or 

 if she prefers, the teacher may clip her own roses, and "the bathing pavilions 

 will furnish a rose for the hair of every swimmer." 



There are many interesting trips to be taken from Portland as a center, and 

 those teachers who are fortunate enough to attend this meeting are sure to have 

 the time of their lives. 



Dr. R. W. Shufeldt ^ends the following news notes on Nature-Study in the 

 public schools of Washington, D. C: 



For many years past I have been much interested in the matter of the 

 development of the observational powers of boys and girls, in their school and 

 home training, to begin as early in their childhood as possible. Malobserva- 

 tion on the part of individuals of either sex, at any age, is responsible for more 

 misunderstandings, defective education, criminal acts, and general misery and 

 unhappiness among us, than all the other causes in the world put together. 

 We have not far to seek, at any time, abundant evidence to sustain this state- 

 ment. When malobservation is combined with gossip, it often results in the 

 severance, o^ friends, and in breaking up of families. It has the power at all 

 times to fill the literature of science of every description with error, to be passed 

 into schools of education of every grade and description; and it may be the 

 cause of losing everything or anything, from a case of infantile paralysis to the 

 most momentous battle fought in the history of mankind. Indeed, there is no 

 end to what malobservation may be responsible for either in private or public 

 life. For this reason we should do all in our power to properly develop and 

 train the faculty in our children, at every stage of their education, in the matter 

 of seeing, and seeing correctly, and when the proper age is arrived at to report 

 truly — that is, to write out correct accounts of what they have seen. 



Nature-study, when properly incorporated into the educational scheme of 

 children, in the family and in the schools, constitutes a method that is amply 

 able to effect what we aim to accomplish along such lines, and accomplish it 

 most thoroughly. These facts are so well known to the best of our teachers of 

 children throughout the country, that it will not be necessary to occupy fur- 

 ther space here touching the matter at this time. 



Recently, Miss Cora A. Smith, News Editor of The Review, has requested 

 me to report upon what is being done in such directions in the Public Schools 

 of Washington, D. C. In taking the initial steps toward gaining the necessary 



