282 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [10:7— Oct., 1914 



and, although there are many schools doing good work on a smaller 

 scale, it must be said that the school garden is even today more of a 

 curiosity than a regularly accepted part of the school work. The 

 chief obstacles met with are scarcity of land, dangers from neglect 

 during the long summer holidays, lack of broad knowledge on the 

 part of the teacher and apathy or even active opposition on the 

 part of the trustees and parents. These we are trying to meet 

 with "home" gardening, simimer courses for teachers, and the 

 sending out of capable young men from the Agricultural College to 

 visit every rural section, enlist the sympathies of the parents and 

 give the teacher a start in the work. 



"Agriculturalize the school garden," this is the new watchword. 

 The economic side is to be emphasized and it is even hoped that in 

 this we may find the solution to the problem of rural depopu- 

 lation. 



Do we not run a danger here of forgetting the great spiritual 

 aim we once formulated, viz., to bring the child into sympathy and 

 harmony with Nature ? The economic phase we once held to be 

 quite secondary, and, now, in order to popularize our subject we 

 seem ready to make it of primary importance. Nature-Study 

 always will have a higher place in developing the religious, moral 

 and aesthetic in the child than in helping him to raise good com, 

 hens or apples. The causes of rural depopulation, are very numer- 

 ous and complex and the remedy will not be a simple one. The 

 teaching of agriculture will, no doubt, do some good but we can 

 never get away from the basic principle that a good character not a 

 good farmer is the end at which we should aim. This is, of course, 

 not saying that both restdts may not be achieved by the same 

 process. 



As a sort of compromise between the purely cultural and the 

 purely agricultural aims of nature-study, I wish to suggest the 

 introduction of some systematic experimental work, some advan- 

 tages of which may be here enumerated: 



I. Children are particularly prone to reliance on what the 

 teacher or the book says. In the case of many of the school sub- 

 jects, the book and the teacher will be the only sources of informa- 

 tion but in nature-study an opportunity is presented of showing 

 the pupil one of the great sources from which human knowledge 

 flows. The best teacher will be the one who raises problems not 

 the one who merely answers questions. The child should early 



