144 ETON NATURE-STUDY 



examined. The teacher will of course find many suitable text-books, 

 dealing with these animals, and the practical work will doubtless be 

 interspersed with verbal explanations. At the same time we would 

 like once more to point out that there is always a large class of 

 students who have had no previous training in nature- study and in 

 whom there may have been very little if any spirit of enquiry 

 aroused. They will dissect out and draw a structure, only because 

 they have been told to do so either in a lecture or by their text-books. 

 Consequently, for these individuals, practical biology may be of little 

 educational value. We have found it therefore useful in our own 

 classes, to use a number of specially hectographed, or printed papers 

 dealing with each " type," and so drawn up that the pupil has 

 continually to be using his reasoning powers. Unless something of 

 this kind is done, the work must in many cases be little more than a 

 mechanical exercise. The proper direction of this work will call 

 for previous zoological training on the part of the teacher, and 

 unless he possesses it, it were better for him to omit anything like 

 systematic zoology from his programme. 



