LIFE ACTIVITIES AND ADAPTATIONS. 55 



banks, bed, basin, watershed, tributary, current, rapids, shallows, 

 winding, building and wearing banks, delta. Work of streams. 

 Relation of stream to farm, town and district. Life in the stream and 

 on its banks. (A preparation for the study of a river. ) 



2. Drawing plan of school-room, school-house and grounds, home. 

 Making a map of the district and recording the geographical facts 

 discovered. 



3. The study of the "earth as a whole" — an immense ball rotating 

 on its axis and exposed to the light and the heat of the sun. Cold, hot 

 and temperate regions. Introduction and use of the terms "equator" 

 and "poles." The land and the water-masses in continents and 

 oceans. The positions and names of these. The earth-plateau. The 

 general character of the climate. Productions and peoples of each 

 continent. The value of each continent to the others (a simple 

 introduction to the meaning of exports and imports). The polar and 

 equatorial winds. (Free use should be made of the school globe and the 

 sand-map. ) 



Life Activities and Adaptations.— The movements of 



animals, their food and means of obtaining it, their homes, 

 the care of their young, their play, the sounds they make, 

 their expressions of fear, anger and affection, their familiar 

 uses to man — in short, all the activities that suggest inter- 

 pretation in terms of human experience — appeal much more 

 strongly to children in Forms I and II (1st to 4th years) than 

 do considerations of structure and classification. In Form II, 

 however, observation of apparent adaptations of organ to 

 function, as the teeth of the cat to tearing and those of the 

 squirrel to gnawing, and of general structure to mode of life, 

 for example, the robin to flight and the rabbit to burrowing, 

 should receive considerable attention. One would naturally 

 suppose that lessons based on the life-side of plants and 

 animals would be preferred by teachers, therefore, surprise is 

 sometimes expressed that they seem willing or able to use 

 only dead or dissected organisms. The dead form is observed 

 and the function inferred or remembered or learned as so much 

 information; thus reversing the natural order. Dr. C. F. Hodge 



