204 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



a distance that, at their present height of about lo or 15 feet, 

 their lower branches are so close, thick, and bushy that it is 

 almost impossible to see anything beyond the rectangle. 

 Entrance to this outdoor school is at one corner, where much 

 traffic has kept the branches short. All around are other 

 conifers, chiefly Scots pine, which shelter the children at work 

 there from the sun's rays. The young Douglas firs are also 

 now beginning to share in this work. 



Some one has gone to great pains in the planning and making 

 of the plot, and the children love the summer school. Promised 

 to go there in the afternoon, they work twice as well beforehand. 

 In the hot, dark class-room they become weary, listless, and 

 sleepy ; in the open they are all alive. The noise of feet and 

 slates, especially in the infant department, is at times almost 

 unbearable ; all noises vanish in the summer school. It is 

 especially an advantage for drill and nature study. Drill in 

 country schools is apt to be composed of only a few uninterest- 

 ing, monotonous, simple exercises, since movement is very 

 much restricted. In this selected spot all free-standing move- 

 ments, with running, jumping, and games, which make the 

 children healthy in mind and body, can be indulged in. If 

 permitted to use their voices the drill is all the more like fun, 

 and still there is no excess noise. Nothing could be better than 

 to study nature in the open air. The children take far more 

 interest in the subject when all around tells of it than if, within 

 four solid walls, they had to imagine it all. They begin to love 

 nature study for nature's sake. 



Space is also an advantage. All children can be placed on 

 the ground so that every one is seen at a glance, and yet no 

 one requires to be near his or her neighbour. The work done 

 in the summer school has not the sameness, this child's to its 

 neighbour's, as that done within doors. A test set in the open 

 is worth far more than one set in the schoolroom. 



Another, though perhaps secondary, use this school is put 

 to is during the midday interval. There are always some 

 children who have come with unprepared work. In the summer 

 school, under the eye of the teacher, this wrong is righted, 

 and yet the children have the benefit of fresh air and sunlight 

 all the time. Even work at this time can be carried on without 

 disturbance from the free pupils; the eye of the most curious 

 cannot penetrate the dense screen. 



