Rl'X'OKDS. 187 



iiiiiul is ail organ lor diocstion and assimilation of materials for 

 healthful mental growth, that is quite another. In one sequence 

 you can keep up a natural eager relish for that which is to come 

 next ; by some unwise sequence you may create a disrelish. 



This brings me to my main proposition. It has appeared to 

 me more than likely that part of this listlessness on the one hand 

 and of poverty of mental furnishing on the other, might be 

 changed for the better by the introduction into tlic curriculum of 

 each of our schools, no matter what its grade, of a simple scien- 

 tific work which should aim at ixvo things. As a rule, in shoot- 

 ing, or in teaching others to shoot, it is considered rather better 

 to aim at one thing at a time ; Init my suggestion aims at two, 

 namely, discipline and the acquisition of a few facts worth having. 

 But mine is a shot-gun policy. 



In brief, my plan is this : to have a short composite treatise on 

 what, for want of a better term, we call Ph} siography, or Physical 

 Geography, giving in the clearest manner the few absolutely 

 necessary facts and essential princij^les of the tributary sciences 

 so far as these bear on the ordinary simple matters of common 

 observation; but all of the work to be done by masters in these 

 sciences and to be edited by a master in Paidagogics. Such a 

 w^ork would consist of these facts and principles of the following 

 long list of the tributary sciences ; viz., rudimentary astronomy, 

 meteorology, lithology, physics, chemistry, botany, zoolog)', and 

 possibly dynamical geology, arranged in an orderly, natural man- 

 ner, and given in the fewest words. The facts and principles 

 thus brought together would be within very narrow limits, for 

 they would be simply the focts and principles which illustrate 

 elementary physical geography, being those only which every 

 well-educated person in these days of extreme ditVerentiation 

 ought to be ashamed not to know. So much for the rote part of 

 the work. But my impracticable proposition contemplates also 

 that which is far removed from rote ; namely, the attachment to 

 each of these fragments of an outline of laboratory or practical 

 work, giving the soundest methods of independent study in that 

 science. 



The scheme proposes the selection, by the teacher, of owe of 

 these practical outlines ; it does not ask that any teacher or any 

 pupils should be compelled to use more than one of the outlines. 

 That is to say, if a teacher does not care for botany or /.oology or 



