The Field Naturalist's 

 Quarterly 



Vol. I. AUGUST 1902. No. 3. 



Editorial. 



During the last thirty years of compulsory education Nature 

 Study has taken a place in our Elementary School Codes in 

 various guises, perhaps one might say disguises ; for doubt- 

 less the teacher who had the root of the matter in him could 

 have employed the "optionals" of Botany and Agriculture 

 of the Codes of the 'Eighties, and the Elementary Science 

 " compulsories " of the 'Nineties, of which teachers spoke 

 so much and expected so little ; or he could even have made 

 a "voluntary specific" of either had he so chosen. Why 

 the teacher did not force the Education Department to put 

 Nature Study in the New Code (i8g8) instead of being forced 

 by the powers to take up nature teaching nolens volens, may 

 be accounted for in various ways. It may be because only 

 within the last five years has Nature Study been included in 

 the Training College curricula, and it may also be for other 

 reasons concerned with the Department bringing themselves 

 into touch with Swiss, German, and American schoolwork 

 on the Nature Study lines. 



Whatever the reason, the parlour botany of the young 

 ladies' finishing school, the illustrated - chart botany of a 

 few elementary schools (which had as its climax the calling 

 of the gowan by the expletive Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), 



VOL. I. — NO. 3. L 



