1900-1901. | Nature Study. 241 
to knowledge. It cultivates the habit of finding out things 
for ourselves: it is therefore the true ontogenetic method— 
the course to pursue for individual development. It is of 
great economic importance to make the country more attractive 
and prevent its depopulation, The difficulties which stand in 
the way of its introduction are the want of teachers, them- 
selves trained in the heuristic method; the want of time 
in school hours; and, chiefly, the results cannot readily be 
summed up for payment by examination. 
And now I must go on to speak of the subject as it concerns 
us mature men and women, and chiefly the real although almost 
unconscious devotees to nature study—the field naturalists. 
Most of us have unfortunately not had the advantage of good 
“sympathetic direction in our nature studies in early youth, 
-and much of our education might, I daresay, have been with 
advantage replaced by nature study: it would have saved us 
giving brain-room to a good deal of intellectual lumber. 
_ It is often noticed that people who spend much of their 
_ time in reading are not observant; and our school education, 
which is mostly taken up by book study, leads to a like result. 
Some years ago a friend of mine and I were staying in a west 
= village. It was a lovely summer afternoon an hour or 
so before sunset, when we saw a most interesting meteoro- 
logical phenomenon. It was a mock sun of great brilliancy. 
The phenomenon lasted a good half hour, and impressed us ex- 
ceedingly. . One sees ein things figured in books on the arctic 
gions, but I had never seen a parhelion before, nor have I 
Seen one since, in this country. It was Sunday: the hour for 
evening service approached, and a hundred or two of people 
_ walked along the road to church. The sun was at the back of 
ome on one road and on the right of others on another road, 
d somewhat hidden by a plantation, so that it was not straight 
efore them. What struck us greatly was that none of the 
passers-by seemed to notice the phenomenon at all, except a 
few to whom we pointed it out. I asked several neighbours 
next day if they had seen the mock sun: not one of them had 
done so, and some greatly regretted that they had not. I have 
_— people—educated people—who lived within two or 
prec hundred yards of rocks on which were magnificent ice- 
| _groovings, and although they had passed these rocks every day 
I 
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