1 62 The Field Naturalisf s Quarterly Aug. 



Nature Teaching is not due to the initiative of teachers 

 being cribbed, cabined, and confined by departmental freez- 

 ing, we in fairness must assert ; for even so early as '73 we 

 find a footnote to Schedule IV. in reference to the teaching 

 of Nature Science (Chemistry, Botany, Animal Physiology, 

 and Physical Geography): " If these subjects are taught to 

 children by definition and verbal description instead of by 

 making them exercise their own powers of observation, they 

 will be worthless as a means of education." 



We modestly submit, therefore, that the fault is not at the 

 fountain-head, and that the channels of the stream ought to 

 be carefully examined as to the cause of obstruction. 



In the first place, then, schemes of work must be made 

 out, not for rhetorical effect but for practical use. If the 

 head of a school took as his scheme for the year an exact 

 resume of what had actuall}' been accomplished in the pre- 

 vious year, and added to that, what expanding experience, 

 love of the subject, and ever-widening sympathy between 

 teacher and pupil would accumulate during the months in 

 which the work was taken up, he would have a code self- 

 constructed, real, living, and progressive. 



What subjects are to be included in such a scheme must 

 to some extent be dictated by the locality : but domestic 

 and wild animals ; domestic and outdoor insects ; plants, 

 garden and wild ; the food and enemies of all these, — must, 

 we think, find a prominent place in every scheme of Nature 

 Study. 



If children be asked to write a table of all the quadrupeds, 

 birds, creeping things, flying insects, fishes, plants (flowers 

 and trees), which they have ever seen and can recognise, the 

 teacher will be startled to see the microscopic result. This 

 surely indicates one direction in which knowledge is wanted. 

 The instructor should follow by indicating how each and all 

 of these contribute towards or subtract from man's existence 

 or happiness. The life-history of the type of each group 

 should be studied by actual observation without going into 

 minutiae. Specimens collected should not be consigned to a 

 museum for the purpose of saving trouble next year. Only 

 those of outstanding merit or exceptional interest should be 

 preserved. Here the specialists usually connected with the 



