PROCEEDINGS, 1916. 



ADDRESS. 



Dr. A. H. MacKay, Superintendent of Education. 



IT IS only a year since I spoke at the organization of the Nova Scotia Entomolog- 

 ical Society and we have already a well illustrated and valuable volume of Pro- 

 ceedings of more than one hundred pages. This creditable beginning could not 

 have been made if we had not in our Secretary-Treasurer a man of unusual 

 energy as well as of scientific enthusiasm and accurate scholarship, which has been and 

 is a characteristic of his distinguished family. 



Such a volume alone is well worth the annual fee of members; but when member- 

 ship in the Nova Scotian Society gives membership in the great and now venerable En- 

 tomological Society of Ontario, with its monthly output of Canadian Entomological 

 Research, and its Annual Report written and illustrated for the untechnical public — 

 just the kind o'f introduction needed by the beginner — it appears to be a sin for any 

 teacher to miss the chance of getting such interesting and valuable literature. In addi- 

 tion to all this Mr. Brittain puts each member on the list for the Dominion Entomolo- 

 gical reports. 



We are fortunate here in Nova Scotia to have the Normal College so closely asso- 

 ciated with the College of Agriculture and its growing laboratories for research work 

 into all that concerns agriculture, horticulture, forestry and the cognate sciences under- 

 lying the industries based on the soil. Our teachers, therefore, have a grand opportun- 

 ity to prepare themselves to develop in the schools an appreciation of the good points 

 and eminent advantages of intelligent rural life. And while doing so they are simul- 

 taneously preparing their pupils for success in any other vocation whose success depends 

 on accurate observation and sound reasoning therefrom. These are qualities of mind 

 essential to success in the learned professions, and especially in those who may aspire 

 to leadership of any kind up to statesmanship. 



Now a good practical outline of entomological fundamentals and of a few local 

 species will be of very great value to the teacher for several reasons. 



First, the insects are always at hand, at home in the garden, on the crops in the 

 fields, on the shrubbery by the wayside, on the roadway itself, in the logs and trees and 

 water pools along the pupils' route, and under the chips and stones by the playground. 



Second, their life history and work are among the easiest biological phenomena 

 to be observed from beginning to conclusion, and thus they offer most convenient ma- 

 terial to enable pupils to understand nature's way, and how nature's ways can be dis- 

 covered. 



Third, even a very limited knowledge of a few species may have great practical 

 value. For instance, when we discover how we may destroy most economically insects 

 which attack crops or fruits or prevent their excessive multiplication. 



The countryman who would laugh to scorn attempts to study the relation between 

 cause and effect when they did not appear to have any bearing on what he considers 

 useful, would have no objections when he could see a utilitarian application. In the 

 June Canadian Forestry our own Mr. J. M. Swaine reports that the Canadian lumber 

 industry is damaged annually to the extent of from $25,000,000 to $75,000,000 by in- 

 sects which bore into the wood or bark, or otherwise injure the forests. Therefore in- 

 sects habits are important — of cash importance. In the United States the damage to 

 the lumber business exceeds $100,000,000 every year. To crops, cattle, etc., as well as to 

 the forests, they damage industry to the extent of one billion dollars annually. 



If the farmer's taxes should be raised from one per cent to one and a half in order 

 to have a first class school, what a howl would be raised! The insects on an average tax 

 him at least 10 per cent of his annual crop. Were a human power to impose a tax of the 

 magnitude imposed by insects we should have rustics arise on every farm who would 

 like 



