8 



ber must unite or present some specimen of real value to the cabinet 

 or pay a small fine. It keeps a careful record of all its doings and 

 excursions, and means to get help wherever it can. 



It has not yet attracted many persons of mature years to its ranks, 

 but it has called in members from outside the school, and its influ- 

 ence is just beginning. 



All will recognize the difficulties attending such a society, but the 

 result is worth the care. We hire a large team, or use the horse or 

 steam cars, or go on foot, to reach our fields of work. We take 

 bottles, knives, baskets, a hammer, and other implements for collec- 

 tion, botany cases if convenient, a book for pressing, or whatever 

 can be easily obtained, to be carried by different members, or by 

 each member ; rubbers and old clothes for all. 



We laugh and talk, and hammer stone walls, and dig roots and 

 search meadows ; we climb hills, struggle through brambles and find 

 rich reward for our search. We hunt for crabs on the beach and 

 chase butterflies in the field, and drink fresh water from the springs. 

 In short, we have a good time, and study natural history. We carry 

 text-books sometimes, we read in the library at others ; what one 

 learns is common property. If the afternoon of Wednesday is rainy, 

 we spend it in the school-room examining and studying specimens. 

 The town gives us a cabinet, and the scientific society in the neigh- 

 boring city loans us a box of representative insects and other speci- 

 mens of interest. 



The society has collected but little except in botany. But every- 

 thing is fish that comes to our nets. We have several crabs in alcohol, 

 star-fish, sand-skippers, a lizard, a frog, shells and sea-weeds, butter- 

 flies and insects, minerals, and some last year's bird's nests we are 

 too pitiful to take the new ones. The cabinet has had some gifts of 

 minerals and curiosities, and it asks and expects more. 



Its members get tired and do not feel like listening to lectures 

 after their long tramp, but they hear patiently a few words from their 

 president, and ask and answer many questions. But they have rosy 

 cheeks and broadening chests, and they know there is a world to 

 observe, more clearly than they have ever known it before. They all 

 like it; and, although not so scientifically inclined as born natural- 

 ists would be, answer, we think, every reasonable expectation. If 

 they will learn to observe, compare, and classify, we think it may 

 help them to buy sugar and cotton cloth, coffee and ribbons, when 

 they become merchants ; and likewise to keep these things in order. 

 And who knows but that one of our uneasy boys, or meek and gentle 

 girls, may find a life path open from among the hills of our excur- 

 sions ? 



We could write much more of what we have seen and what we see 

 ahead ; of what we have done and what we intend to do. We have 

 not tried to make the whole operation clear in these pages, but to us 

 our experiment looks like a success. We do not think it more par- 

 ticularly suited for trial in High than in Grammar, or even Primary 

 Schools. And we are very sure that in the latter something of the 

 sort might be an invigorating auxiliary to the study of the alphabet, 

 which is the alternate horror with folded arms and stiffened necks, in 

 so many of our primary schools." 



Mr. F. W. PUTNAM said that he had listened with 



