INTRODUCTION. 



A FEW general principles must be observed by teachers to 

 render lessons on nature successful. 



1. It is a cardinal principle that those things should be 

 studied which aie neaiest and easiest to obtain, 



2. It is equally true that, so far as possible, the nature 

 study should fit the season Spring supplies an endless 

 wealth of growing seeds, bursting buds, and opening flowers. 

 Flowers and insects are very abundant in autumn, and 

 these are naturally the best things to work with. Winter 

 offers some opposition to study in the open air, hence 

 dependence must be placed on materials that have been 

 collected before the landscape is covered with its mantle of 

 snow ; the school is then left to work on minerals, dried 

 fruits, preserved insects, the snow itself, and such other 

 things as may be at hand. 



3. It is suggested, then, that during the autumn, while 

 the pupils are at work upon things easily found, collections 

 of things which will keep be made for use when the snow 

 prevents outdoor expeditions. Any ditch or gravel-pit is 

 full of pebbles of various kinds, and often as many as twenty 

 or thirty different kinds of stones may be found in the space 

 of a few feet. The city teacher is no less blessed in this 

 respect than the country teacher, for wherever a new build- 

 ing is in process of erection the sand has to be screened, 

 and the piles of gravel may be laid under contribution for 

 stores of minerals A stock of seeds and nuts, grains and 

 dried seed-pods, should always be laid in. 



If the following lessons do not appear to possess any 



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