74 NATURE STUDY. 



School Trips at Watertown. 



School trips form an important part of the school work at Water- 

 town, Mass. They are looked on as a legitimate side of the course 

 of study, and are taken in school hours. An idea of their scope 

 will be given by the following partial list of trips taken during the 

 present school year. For primary grades, visits to the blacksmith, 

 the carpenter, and the farmer, a trip to Longfellow's home, a visit 

 to the Indian room at the Peabody museum at Harvard, trips to 

 ponds, trips for the study and collection of flowers, plants, and 

 leaves, to study and collect insects, to observe signs of fall and 

 spring, visits to City Point for marine life, to Norumbega Park 

 menagerie ; for geography, visits to the rubber works, the iron 

 foundry, the woolen mills, the market gardens, visit to a Chicago 

 train at the South station, visits to Cunard and Dominion line 

 steamers, a trip about Boston ; for history and literature, visits to 

 the Art museum, the Abbey pictures at the library, to a session of 

 the legislature at the State House, a trip to Concord and Lexing- 

 on, a visit to the Riverside Press. 



These trips were first carefully prepared by the teachers and aft- 

 erwards written up and illustrated, sometimes with photographs 

 taken at the time of the visit by the pupils. One of the most val- 

 uable trips has been the visit to Boston, taken as a starting point 

 for the sixth grade study of geography. Four hours were spent 

 on this trip, the pupils noting the typical sights and many of the 

 historic landmarks of Boston, and visiting, among other points, 

 the subway, the South Station, the shopping district, the press 

 room of a daily paper, the interior of King's chapel, the roof of 

 the Ames building, the State Bouse, and the Public Gardens. 



Another side of the school trips, especially of those taken in con- 

 nection with geography, has been the exchange of pupils' letters 

 with schools in Scranton, New York, New Orleans, Chicago and 

 Pasadena. For the coming school year Superintendent Page is 

 arranging to exchange an illustrated account of a trip about Boston 

 for similar accounts of trips about New York, Washington, New 

 Orleans, and Chicago. — School Journal. 



Even in its hours of silence, the forest occasionally finds a voice, 

 a sound, or a murmur, which recalls to you the remembrance of 

 life. — Michelet, 



