CHAPTER III. 



SCHOOL COURSES. 



The Framing of Courses. 



The following courses are framed as a continuous 

 series to extend over five years of elementary school life. 

 Teachers will probably not be able to adhere rigidly to the 

 details submitted, since there is no doubt that local circum- 

 stances ought in the main to determine these. While this 

 is so it will be found in most cases that much material of 

 a kind common to all localities is included. The general 

 principles applied in the drawing up of the courses should, 

 however, not be lost sight of. 



Seasonal Studies. 



The work of the courses should be carried through with 

 some recognition of the seasons. In a sense such advice is 

 scarcely necessary, for practical teachers are compelled 

 from force of circumstances to utilise almost exclusively 

 just the materials which the seasons bring, and as a matter 

 of fact studies out of season are comparatively rare. But 

 the opportunity should not be lost of tracing the relation 

 between the seasonal cycle of the earth and the life upon 

 it. This may be done in the lower classes simply by 

 teaching lessons at the appropriate time, in the higher by 

 showing the dependence of all life upon the heat of the 

 sun, and by tracing a correspondence between the cycle of 

 increasing and declining heat and the flow and ebb of life 

 upon the earth. 



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