Professor Thomson's Address 131 



moisture. The day is surely past when we are con- 

 tent with leaving this marvellous impression simply 

 as a riddle in the child's mind, which school at least 

 will never help to solve. And my further point is, 

 that the children should be led to face this and 

 similar problems, wken the facts are tJiere. 



A critic has told me that my sketch of a seasonal 

 course, which I published as an appendix to a very 

 different kind of course for adults in our northern 

 university, is pretty, but impracticable. I venture to 

 deny the critical part of this comment, for I know 

 of seasonal courses which have been conducted, wisely 

 and well, with the slenderest resources in the way of 

 grants for material, indeed with none at all. I do not 

 mean that the seasonal method is at first the easiest; 

 it is only psychologically that it follows the line of 

 least resistance. A much easier plan is to give 

 lessons on such material "as comes to hand", 

 whether relevant to the times and seasons or not; 

 a still easier plan is to have no material at all, ex- 

 cept perhaps diagrams, which are apt to be deadly 

 dull. The seasonal course requires preparation, but 

 it is bound to improve as year follows year. I think 

 the emphasis on seasonal studies is one of the most 

 striking general facts of our exhibition. 



After all, what I am insisting on is nothing very 

 ambitious that -we should have the real tilings before 

 our scholars' eyes at the right time. And in autumn 

 it is not much to ask a handful of leaves of vine, 

 Virginian creeper, bramble, and bird-cherry; a plate 

 of autumn fruits, and some tubes with dandelion down 

 and splitting broom-pods; the nuts from one of the 

 squirrel's many stores; the rowan-tree midribs from 



