Miss Simpson's Address 161 



is done in infant departments. Specially can this be 

 done in the three subjects: nature-lessons, geography, 

 and drawing. The exhibit of drawing copies drawn 

 up for the Leicester schools, and sent as a part of our 

 exhibit, will show how we have attempted to do this. 

 It will be seen that they largely consist of nature 

 subjects, especially of plant forms. 



THE TEACHER AS OBSERVER 



BY Miss MARY SIMPSON, OF THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE, 



LEEDS 



When the title of this paper was suggested to me 

 my first thought was, surely all, or nearly all, the 

 difficulties connected with nature teaching would dis- 

 appear if once the teacher had learned to be an 

 observer. What different lessons we should have! 

 How living they would become! The wall-diagram 

 would grow musty for want of use, and the object- 

 lesson text-book, with its ready-prepared lesson, would 

 lie neglected on the shelf. The constant question 

 would cease to be: "What book can you recom- 

 mend?" but the teacher would himself begin to try 

 and work out life-stories, and arrange them in chap- 

 ters so simple that the children could in their turn 

 spell them out for themselves too. Surely, then, the 

 nature-lesson would alway be upon some common 

 plant or some common animal, simply because it 

 would always be upon something the teacher had 

 observed for himself. We should no longer have 

 lessons on monkeys and elephants and kangaroos, on 



