Mr. Hanbury's Address 99 



and useful than it has been, we can show the farmer 

 that education is as necessary for their industry as for 

 any other, and that the prejudice which has existed 

 will be removed. This may tend to arrest the migra- 

 tion from the rural districts to the towns, and prove 

 the means of our obtaining more strong young men 

 from the country as recruits for the navy and the army. 



THE STUDY OF NATURE 



BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD AVEBURY, 

 D.C.L., F.R.S. 



The subject on which I have been asked to address 

 you is " The Study of Nature ". This appears to 

 imply that Nature is worth studying. It would indeed 

 almost have seemed as if this was a self-evident pro- 

 position. We live in a wonderful and beautiful world, 

 full of interest, and one which it is most important to 

 understand, and fatal to misunderstand. Yet until 

 lately our elementary schools were practically confined 

 to reading, writing, and arithmetic; our grammar 

 schools mainly, as the very name denotes, to grammar; 

 while our great public schools even now omit the 

 study of Nature altogether, or devote to it only an 

 hour or two in the week, snatched from the insatiable 

 demands of Latin and Greek. The result is, in many 

 cases, the most curious ignorance of common things. 

 So far as elementary schools are concerned you will 

 be addressed to-morrow by Prof. Lloyd Morgan, and 

 I will therefore address myself primarily to secondary 

 schools. 



