Mr. Hall's Address 197 



teachers you may say that this makes it very diffi- 

 cult to scheme out our lessons, and may ask what 

 should be done if the experiment were not ready. 

 Well, these lessons ought to be part of the whole 

 work of the school, ix. they are not lessons in 

 science or Nature knowledge merely, but lessons 

 in knowledge, and composition; dictation, spelling, 

 grammar, drawing, mathematics all ought to be 

 swept into service, and you can fill in the vacant 

 gaps of time in the lessons by making use of the 

 other subjects and working them in at the same time. 

 For instance, in asking questions from the child and 

 getting his answers, you can do a great deal in what I 

 think is very important, the study of words. People 

 are very apt to hide behind a word. It is important 

 never to let a child throw a big word at you and not 

 to try to get it translated into everyday, common- 

 sense English. You ought also to make it a lesson 

 in drawing; everything ought to be recorded by 

 means of some kind of drawing. You cannot more 

 effectively help a boy, who is going to become a 

 workman of any description later in life, than by 

 making him understand drawing. He must be able 

 to see what a plan means, learn something about an 

 elevation, and he should be able to express himself 

 with a few lines upon a piece of paper. If he can 

 make that drawing he can issue orders, and if he can 

 read a plan he can understand an order in a way that 

 no written words will convey to him. Again, we 

 want to make Nature-study an exercise in arithmetic. 

 Measurements there must be as far as possible, and 

 it is astonishing how many simple measurements can 

 be drawn into this study of seeds, and plants, and so 



