Sir Joshua Fitch's Address 269 



reminded that beyond the regular official scheme of 

 work such as is planned to satisfy codes and inspectors, 

 there is, or ought to be, a margin of time and influence 

 open to every good teacher, and that in this neutral 

 ground between school and home much may be done 

 to promote thought and inquiry about the natural world. 

 I have often told the authorities of training col- 

 leges, and the same thing applies also to every 

 elementary school, that the list of lectures and 

 exercises should not be so planned as to absorb all 

 the hours of the week. Some little time at least 

 should be left unappropriated, and available for em- 

 ployments which are not regular lessons and which 

 have nothing to do with preparing for examination. 

 For example, suppose at least half an hour at the 

 end of each week is reserved, and the teacher gathers 

 together the upper classes of a school for some pur- 

 pose not in the ordinary programme. Here is an 

 opportunity for reading a story or a poem, for show- 

 ing a picture and encouraging conversation about it, 

 for giving a graphic extract from a newspaper, de- 

 scribing perhaps the Yellowstone Park, an Arctic ex- 

 pedition, or the lamentable earthquakes in the West 

 Indies; or for inviting some intelligent friend — clergy- 

 man or school manager — who has been travelling 

 abroad, to come and tell his adventures and to 

 bring with him photographs of scenery. In this way 

 the children may come to know what a glacier, a 

 desert, a prairie, or a waterfall is like. They may 

 become conscious of the beauty and variety of the 

 world in which they have come to live, and so 

 may be led to desire a fuller knowledge of its 

 wonders. Special occasions also arise, as at the 



