INTRODUCTION 3 



assigned to them as they are fit for ; the explanations 

 and questions are adapted to their present knowledge 

 and capacity. To offer them a lesson suitable for a class 

 of children would be impossible, and even if it were 

 possible, would give a wrong notion of what the lesson 

 should aim at. A lesson at its best is an inquiry, worked 

 out between the teacher and his class. Train the teachers 

 to observe, to reflect, to express their meaning in clear 

 language, and to arrange the matter of their lessons in 

 a good order, but leave them entirely free to choose their 

 own subjects, and to handle them in their own way. 



Though the teacher, even if fortunate, cannot expect 

 to be able to devote a large part of his time to study, 

 the hours that he can now and then spend in study will 

 be of great use, both to him and to his pupils. If he is 

 only able to get up with due thoroughness a single new 

 lesson a year, that lesson will influence all the rest. I have 

 heard of a schoolmaster who had mastered by his own 

 efforts the movements and phases of the moon, and taught 

 that one thing heartily and well. No mean result, I 

 thought, but I should have been glad to hear that he was 

 adding a fresh topic to his stock every year ; less than 

 that would not fix him in the right attitude. 



Whether the living things that share our dwellings, or 

 seek their food in our gardens and fields, make the best 

 possible matter for school-lessons or not, the student of 

 nature is bound to attend to them. They are what the 

 mother-tongue is to the student of languages, what the 

 fatherland is to the student of history. A man who 

 knows nothing about the flowers of his own window- 

 boxes and his own flower-beds, nothing about the plants 

 which raise food for him, or the insects which devour 

 what he had hoped to enjoy, nothing about the minute 

 forms of life which bring fertility to the soil, or fatal 

 disease to the household, nothing about house-flies and 

 hive-bees and bacteria such an one may call himself a 

 naturalist, may indeed have a right to the name, but he 



