126 First Conference 



result of codifying what should be the culture of 

 natural inquisitiveness, but here again I think the 

 prescriptions of the Education Department show- 

 great wisdom, allowing much latitude as to choice of 

 subject, and advising that the Nature-course should be 

 congruent with each particular environment. 



My misgiving as to the possibly, and already, I 

 fear, actually bad results of Nature-study in schools 

 has led me to read this short paper, in which I join 

 with others in recommending a method of Nature- 

 study which I am convinced is the most natural, the 

 most likely to win and sustain the interest both of 

 the pupils knd of the teachers. I mean the seasonal 

 method, a course of studies following the march of 

 the seasons which dominates the life around us and 

 has us also in its grip. 



A seasonal course of natural history is happily 

 familiar to many. It has found its most famous 

 expression in Gilbert White's Natural History of 

 Selborne, echoes of which we find in Professor Miall's 

 Round the Year and other admirable books. Whether 

 we take Howitt's homely Book of the Seasons, or a 

 somewhat technical naturalist's year-book like Russ's 

 Kreislauf des fahres\ whether we put ourselves under 

 Mrs. Brightwen's gentle guidance in her Rambles ivith 

 Nature Students, or read The Country Month by 

 Month by Mrs. J. A. Owen and Prof. G. S. Boulger, 

 or follow the bulletins that come from Cornell, we 

 find in all the seasonal order of treatment, and we 

 have that satisfaction which is always associated with 

 a method that is natural. 



In Spring, emphatically the season of beginnings, of 

 renascence, of young things, the pupils should study 



