220 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:5— May, 1915 



Relation of Present Schemes to the So-Called" MacDonald Movement'' 

 The plans under which the subject is working its way at present 

 into the schools are the outcome of the movement to introduce 

 Nature-Study and School Gardening. At the commencement of 

 the movement in Canada, about the year 1903, Sir William 

 MacDonald of Montreal, acting through the Provincial Depart- 

 ments of Education, gave special grants of money to a few selected 

 rural schools in each of the five eastern provinces to provide land 

 and equipment for school gardening. Specially trained super- 

 visors were also provided for the groups of schools in each province, 

 and it was hoped that with these schools serving as object lessons 

 the work would be copied extensively. In Ontario, the MacDonald 

 school gardens, as they were called, were located at country schools 

 in Carleton County within a radius of about twenty miles of the 

 city of Ottawa. The results from these gardens, so far as influenc- 

 ing other schools, have been disappointingly meagre in this 

 province, and I believe also in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova 

 Scotia and Prince Edward Island. 



What was of more importance and effect than the commence- 

 ment of a few school gardens, was Sir William MacDonald 's 

 establishment of the MacDonald Institute with a Nature-Study 

 Department included, at the provincial Agricultural College at 

 Guelph. This Department has linked together the Departments 

 of Education and Agriculture in their efforts to better rural educa- 

 tion. It has had charge of the special training of teachers in 

 Agriculture for the Department of Education, and as a Depart- 

 ment of the Agricultural College it has sought to help rural teach- 

 ers by distributing planting material for garden work, by preparing 

 bulletins, circulars and instruction sheets, by answering all in- 

 quiries for advice and help, by visiting schools to give lectures 

 and by attending Teachers' and Trustees' Associations throughout 

 the Province. Three years ago the head of the Nature-Study 

 Department was appointed to the staff of the Department of 

 Education as Director of Elementary Agricultural Education. 

 Through this the Nature-Study Department virtually became a 

 part of the provincial educational system. 



Special Grants to Teachers and Trustees 

 The giving of financial help from the MacDonald funds to 

 schools establishing school gardens was carried out only for a few 



