164 Second Conference 



like to think that the teachers in those classes learned, 

 to some extent at any rate, to become observers. I 

 hope they realized that to know a name was of very 

 little moment, but that it was worth a great deal to 

 know something of the life behind the name. Not 

 only is practical work in the class-room necessary 

 in order to learn how to observe carefully, but we 

 must have out-of-door work too. I am sure that 

 these two kinds of work should be carried on side 

 by side, one incomplete without the other. The im- 

 portance of this field-work cannot be over-estimated. 

 We may learn the truth in the class-room, but it is 

 out in the open that we see the beauty of the truth. 



Early in the year I was taking the structure of a 

 winter bud with a class of teachers. After dissecting 

 a horse-chestnut bud, we put some twigs in water and 

 placed them in a warm place in order to tempt the 

 leaves to unfold before the spring-time. Week by 

 week we noted the gradual opening of these buds, 

 the separation of the scale-leaves, the first appearance 

 of the folded foliage-leaves all wrapped up in their 

 woolly covering, the gradual casting off of the hairy 

 coat and the straightening out of the crumples. At 

 last one teacher said : " But that's not how they open 

 on the trees, is it.-*" His question was answered when 

 a week or two later we went into the woods to study 

 unfolding buds. 



Dr. Arnold says: "What we know and love we 

 cannot but communicate". We learn to know the 

 plants in the class-room, we learn to love them when 

 we study them in their own haunts, amid their natural 

 surroundings. It seems to me a teacher cannot give 

 a very dull lesson on a plant or animal if he has 



