Sir W. Hart-Dyke's Address 249 



evening continuation -schools, and 2nd, through that 

 of secondary and higher grade schools, leading up to 

 the more finished work in a collegiate centre — also 

 that no effort should be spared to secure an adequate 

 supply of properly- trained teachers — let me emphasize 

 one point: do not let us allow even a hint or sugges- 

 tion to get abroad that we advocate any system of 

 specializing in our elementary schools. Nothing would 

 endanger or retard the movement we are all so 

 anxious to promote so much as such an impression 

 as that. We demand, considering the price which 

 we shall have to pay, whether as tax-payers or rate- 

 payers, that the education in our rural schools shall 

 be thorough and complete. All we ask is, that the 

 early and awakening intelligence of these little chil- 

 dren should be directed, pari passtc with the ordinary 

 curriculum, to the life going on around them, to all 

 those simple truths which can be garnered from a 

 study of Nature and her multifarious surroundings. 

 We urge that there is going on a grievous waste of 

 brain power in a child when a constant habit of 

 observation is not a part of its educational training, 

 and that it is of vital importance that such a training 

 should be a part of the earliest commencement of 

 school life. I will not urge here the obvious advan- 

 tages that may accrue ultimately to the agricultural 

 interest; but this I do know, that on visits both to 

 Germany and Switzerland I have taken particular 

 notice of farming operations in both countries, and I 

 have always been struck by the difference between 

 the workers in the field in those countries and in our 

 own. There you at once apprehend the training in 

 method and observation which has been applied; 



