110 THE NATURE STUDY COURSE. 



are suited to the same grade of pupils, nor equally to the same 

 season of the year. Indeed they should not be called lessons 

 for they are only broken outlines and suggestions of lessons. 

 Even as a list it lacks completeness. The same teacher, owing 

 to varying circumstances, would make a different selection from 

 those given here and introduce different additions in one school 

 from what he would do in another. Nothing has been said 

 about expression. A Fourth Class or a Senior Third, after 

 going through ten or a dozen of these studies, should be able 

 to compose an illustrated and very readable essay on " Water." 



Study of Glass. — As an example of treatment of another 

 common object see pages 32 and 33 for an outline study of 

 glass. The references there relate solely to the arrangement 

 and composition of the expressive parts ; they do not show 

 the chronological order of the studies. 



We may assume that the occasion to study glass arises out 

 of the accident of a broken window-pane. The alert teacher 

 will see that the replacing of the pane is made the opportunity 

 of a Nature Study lesson. The old pane has to be removed ; 

 the sash may have to be taken out. Fortune favors if the 

 new pane is too large and has to be reduced in size. The 

 broken glass will do to practise on. It will be unsafe to risk 

 operation on the new pane before success in manipulating the 

 broken pieces gives confidence in the method. "The scholars," 

 writes a teacher, " are proud of their achievment. We used 

 hot water to loosen the old putty, collected it and hammered 

 it into powder and put some oil in it ; we cut an eighth of an 

 inch off the end of the new pane to get it to slip in, and 

 temporarily secured it with the new-old putty. They are even 

 prouder of their puttying than of their glass-cutting." 



This is a start. The teacher may resolve to make further 

 educative use of glass and, therefore, keep on the outlook for 

 opportunities or go out of the way to make them. An old- 



