SCHOOL COURSES. 17 



General Principles to be Taught. 



If the advocates for Nature Study are to save the subject 

 from reproach they must, whilst utilising materials varied 

 in character, aim at teaching with definite continuity of 

 principle ; the material should be illustrative of such. 

 That is to say, a year's course of lessons unconnected by 

 any set of generalisations, or which is not capable of being 

 summarised under a set of principles, cannot be regarded 

 as satisfactorily planned. 



Not only single courses, but the whole series of courses 

 within a school, should be framed in logical continuity, so 

 that by the time a pupil has passed through the school he 

 has been put in possession, not simply of a large number 

 of facts regarding nature, but has obtained a grasp of 

 fundamental facts, which give him some power in inter- 

 preting nature's problems. 



Such an aim has been kept in view in the following 

 courses. Fundamental principles are made clear by simple 

 experiment and otherwise to the pupils at the earliest 

 stages. In the later stages, as the pupils come into touch 

 with more detail, complexities and amplifications of prin- 

 ciple are in measure introduced. 



Much energy may be dissipated for lack of summarising 

 or of focussing the results of a series of lessons. It does 

 not follow, of course, that the principle under which the 

 facts dealt with are grouped need be always enunciated 

 to the pupils. But undoubtedly the facts will gain in 

 presentation if they are always so grouped first of all in 

 the mind of the teacher. And conversely, if they are not 

 so grouped, will their presentation tend to be ineffective 

 and lacking in interest. 



The teacher who adheres to this rule in the planning of 

 his Nature Study lessons will not find it difficult to build 

 up well connected courses likely both to develop the 

 interest of the pupils and to provide them with a unified 

 scheme of nature knowledge. 



N. S. 



