92 The Conferences 



faction by the Vice-President, Sir John Gorst, and 

 myself. We have also endeavoured to take some 

 practical steps in the direction of these changes, but I 

 have not time to do more than briefly indicate their 

 character. We have introduced some changes into 

 the Elementary Education Code, and the Directory 

 for Scientific Education; we have altered in some 

 respects the conditions of the Government grant to 

 schools; and we have issued specimen schemes of 

 instruction ; and all these steps have been taken with 

 the object, which we have endeavoured to describe in 

 the circular we issued last year to the managers of 

 elementary schools, of impressing upon them the im- 

 portance of making education in the village school 

 more consonant with the environment of the scholars 

 than is now usually the case, and more especially of 

 encouraging children to gain an intelligent knowledge 

 of the common things which surround them in the 

 country. The great difficulty which we have met 

 with up to the present time has been the lack of a 

 sufficient number of teachers who themselves had 

 been trained in natural science, and who were suffi- 

 ciently conversant with the objects of country life to 

 impart this new form of instruction to their scholars. 

 The department now requires that Nature-study, from 

 a practical and experimental point of view, shall be 

 taken as one of the subjects of the certificate examin- 

 ation. And I am happy to say that in this endeavour 

 to extend the qualifications of our teachers we have 

 met with the most cordial assistance from the great 

 majority of the training colleges, and we have also 

 received most valuable assistance from many of the 

 county councils, who have established weekly con- 



