58 THE NATURE STUDY COURSE. 



write a history of one of these young animals. How do their 

 mothers show their affection for them ? 



Observe the uses of the horse and cow to man. If we went 

 to live in a country where there are neither cows nor horses, 

 which should we miss more ? What substitutes are there for 

 the services that these animals render mankind ] 



A teacher, sitting in the school-room, and reading this page 

 or the questions in "Public School Nature Study, " on pp. 27- 

 33, will thereby derive help in preparing to conduct a Nature 

 Study lesson on the cow or the horse, or on a comparison of 

 them, but there is a better place to prepare the lesson and a 

 better source of assistance. With note-book and pencil go 

 back to the pasture where these animals are living ; observe 

 them at first-hand. The pages referred to will help you more 

 effectively there than in the school-room. You will find which 

 comparisons are easy to make and which are difficult, and hence 

 be enabled to assign the exercises with the appropriate amount 

 of suggestion. Even though you had been brought up on the 

 farm, and had assisted in the care and handling of the live- 

 stock, you will quite probably discover while preparing to teach 

 an observation lesson on horses and cows several interesting 

 things that you had not noticed before. 



Mr. J. B. Wallis, Supervisor of Nature Study, Winnipeg, 

 found that a difficulty arose when pupils were assigned what 

 seemed to them common-place lessons, as for example, " The 

 Cat." Some of them fancied that having lived so long with a 

 cat in the house that they must know all about it. The 

 danger, I have found, is not an imaginary one that some 

 teachers will assume that they know enough about certain 

 common-place subjects to teach lessons on them without the 

 preparation that comes from a re-examination of them. 



Do not fear to be asked questions that you cannot answer. 

 Expect them; welcome them. Say "I don't know but I am 



