NATURE-STUDY IN NEW ZEALAND 225 



flexibility about the nature of the accompanying outdoor work. 

 With some teachers gardening, with others field botany or geol- 

 ogy, forms the accompaniment. The teacher should be en- 

 couraged to develop a specialty according to his own tastes and 

 the advantages or restrictions of his locality. 



It is now within the power of teachers to take the school out of 

 doors for a lesson and to count it in the time-table. 



Every syllabus that includes the shadow of a stick at noon or 

 the nightly turning of the Southern Cross prescribes topics which 

 it is impossible to treat practically in lessons held at 2 130 \n the 

 afternoon. But this is just the reason why the routine of school 

 work may be broken to allow children to witness interesting or 

 exceptional natural phenomena the times of the occurrence of 

 which are not within our control. 



In schools which possess a garden much can be done in it by 

 the children. Simple experiments in assimilation, pollination, 

 grafting, &c., can be tried. Where classification is studied the 

 making of order beds by the children is a great assistance. When 

 it is impossible to work in the garden, experiments may be carried 

 on in window-boxes. 



Excursions should be made to roads and fields at all times of 

 the year. Even in towns it is possible to study the branching of 

 trees and unfolding of buds and to become familiar with the 

 aspects of different trees in winter, spring, and summer. 



To give definiteness to outdoor work some questions to be 

 answered may be set before starting to talk, and answers to them 

 written out afterwards. Composition should be correlated with 

 observation and experiment. 



Those who are not naturalists by hobby may do much to en- 

 courage children by giving their moral support to the simple in- 

 terests of the wayside. Children may be encouraged to bring 

 curiosities with them to school. Many schools now have a rack 

 of bottles to receive wild flowers picked on the way to school ; a 

 slate reserved for nature notes, where the first scholar who sees a 

 flower, an insect, a migratory bird, &c., may enter the fact. Pots 

 of growing seedlings may occupy the window-sills. Aquariums 

 are always interesting, and a caterpillar cage might be tried. 



The collecting instinct is sufficiently strong at the ages we are 

 discussing. The collector is often a naturalist in embyro ; he is 

 therefore to be led judiciously into the paths of progress. In cer- 

 tain directions — notably bird-nesting — restraint more than en- 



