Report of the Executive Committee 43 



passed round the class. They thus find out for themselves where it was 

 found on a cabbage leaf, what it will eat, what will happen if a bird 

 does not have it, what it came out of, what it will become, what next 

 will happen, and the last thing it will do before it dies. 



" A mole is brought and handed round. It is well handled, fur 

 stroked, eyes and ears looked for, bare feet noted. The place where it 

 is found, its food, home, are all talked about while the object is before 

 the children. Nature-study is going on all the time, there are no hard- 

 and-fast rules setting down one day or one hour to any particular subject, 

 but perfect freedom to choose from the specimens at hand the subject of 

 a lesson. A bat is handed round, one remarks ' webbed legs ', another 

 'webbed wings'. The different parts of the bat are compared with 

 those of the mouse and bird, and so on. Minerals are handled by the 

 children, and they tell the teacher something they have found out by 

 pressing, weighing, looking, or trying to break the stone or rock. 



" In plant life the children sow seeds or watch the teacher sow them, 

 notice their gradual growth, water them, and use the plant to illustrate 

 the lessons on plants. 



" Some collect specimens from their own gardens, some from the 

 roadside. Everything that can be taught by observation and by handling 

 the actual object is so taught. Walks in the lane and field are taken, 

 when lessons on leaves, roots, stems are given, each child picking a 

 specimen as the teacher names the part." 



At Culworth School near Banbury 



" Most of the work done in Nature-study comes under the head of 

 home-lessons ". 



To the teacher there it seemed necessary 



" To commence with something easy in which all the children could 

 join, even the little ones. Each day the different things were brought 

 to him to be named and classified, and at playtime they were examined.' 



B. Descriptive Lessons Composition. In some 

 cases exhibits showed that the pupils are required to de- 

 scribe their observations verbally, but usually these are made 

 the subject of essays. A useful suggestion will be found in 

 the following quotation with regard to St. Asaph National 

 School : 



