Mr. Morrell's Address 187 



the perceptions, setting up a power for initiating 

 inquiry, and grasping an idea, and must induce a 

 power to think, and think accurately, which is the 

 bed-rock of the whole. Further, we would train upon 

 Nature as a subject that admits of no inaccuracies. 

 But we have to be on our guard; for Nature-study in 

 the hands of an incapable teacher, with plates of un- 

 true comparison in natural history, or with blank maps 

 before children who have not first mastered and set 

 in a scale, or with relief maps having contours vertical 

 6 or 7 to i of horizontal, may convey inaccurate im- 

 pressions. How often little regard is paid to first 

 impressions! These inaccurate presentations may be 

 due to the misfortune of a teacher, himself brought 

 forward on wrong lines, who unwittingly may pro- 

 duce out of his pupils " a bookish blockhead, igno- 

 rantly read, with loads of learned lumber in his head"; 

 or may be due to a not well-informed body of man- 

 agers. We want, then, this conference to affirm first 

 that Nature-study is a unit in education of equal 

 value with other items in our curriculum, and, if this 

 is granted, that it should be more pressed into service, 

 not only on the ground that it is of value for training, 

 but also that it is of value in the pursuits of daily life. 

 From childhood to old age we are all in touch with 

 Nature at some point: the choice of a profession or a 

 pursuit indicates where the pull is strongest. In the 

 early years of life we want education in the true sense 

 of the word, leading and drawing out into prominence 

 the innate latent powers. We are not all born with 

 powers in the same direction. The only matter with 

 a dunce is that we have striven to drive him along 

 a road on which he has no interest, and have failed 



