Professor Geddes's Address 113 



the university laboratory, the child's outing and the 

 students' field-work, are thus at length practically 

 meeting; and the concrete problem before us here 

 is how best to unite these two poles of educational 

 progress. This must not be merely in transient, 

 however brilliant sparks, like this exhibition and 

 gathering, which has doubtless to become periodic 

 and regional. Our problem is how to organize this 

 unity everywhere, throughout educational life — how 

 to get from this new contact of the poles of thought 

 — this completed circuit of culture, naturalist and 

 human — a continuous daily current, freshening and 

 vitalizing the everyday work, the ordinary literary 

 and linguistic studies of the school — its arithmetical, 

 mathematical, and mechanical lessons also — and so 

 enlarging the direct termly yield of each of these 

 studies, in measurable, notable percentage, just as 

 the electric current is beginning to do for agricul- 

 ture. 



The mere headings of our daily programmes are 

 enough to show that our movement is wide and 

 general, one affecting the education of both sexes, 

 of all ages, and of all countries. Yet, if it is not to 

 decline and decay, as did the scientific education of 

 the Renaissance, its new astronomy and geography 

 alike dwindling into the (sham) '* use of the globes ", 

 we must be indeed sure that our Nature- study is 

 really a study of Nature. We must know and utilize 

 all our facilities for this, preserve them, develop them 

 as fully as we may. 



That Nature-study begins with the child's awaken- 

 ing to the beauty of the country, to an interest in its 

 life and change, its common things, its everyday sights 



