Mr. Morrell's Address 191 



remedy for our present difficulty in getting lads on 

 from primary schools to the technical class is to be 

 found in modification of our method of education, 

 rather than in forming new schemes of matter to be 

 instructed into minds unreceptive, and in terms unin- 

 telligible and often meaningless which cannot impart 

 information ; on a par with some of the words of the 

 grammarians, the oft-quoted "interjection" enumerated 

 among the parts of speech, and on which Home 

 Tooke's comment is — call it rather the refuge of 

 the speechless. Time fails me to more than indicate 

 how Nature-study points us to the outcome of the 

 action of man; as, for instance, shown in results of 

 drainage and clearances, not merely modifying the 

 features of the landscape, but affecting village life 

 and industry; telling us the past — the story of the 

 forest and the works, as told in the half-timbered 

 cottage or the iron tombstones of the Weald. And 

 to-day it may be the action of man in applying the 

 forces of nature; in bringing power to material by 

 conveying electrical energy even from the " rhythmical 

 pulsation on a tide" to work some inland factory: 

 or, again, may be by appropriation of supply of gas 

 hitherto unsuspected lurking beneath the surface 

 revive again an industry that with the forest fell. 

 Countless other details crowd upon the mind, all 

 pointing to the value of Nature-study: a study that, 

 pursued in its broad elementary form in our primary 

 schools, induces a child to think, and in his humble 

 way to argue out a subject for himself, and gives 

 him an interest in his surroundings at all ages 

 wherever he may be. My time is up. Let me then 

 urge upon the conference to use their best endeavour 



