22 THE Ottawa NarurRALIst. [ April 
other subjects. Speaking generally one half hour lesson per ~ 
week may profitably be devoted in every class to some definite, 
sequential, subject of investigation, and the other half to general 
unrelated observation made as occasion demands. For example, 
yesterday in the Ottawa Model School a number of boys of about 
nine years of age, in the second grade, had a half hour lesson on 
seed planting and at its conclusion undertook to make the seeds 
which they had planted grow. During the next three or four 
weeks they will have a half hour lesson each week, devoted 
to a statement of the discoveries they have made regarding their 
plants and the difficulties they have met with, and also to a con- 
sideration of ways of overcoming these difficulties and to a fuller 
investigation of heat, light, soil and moisture conditions in relation 
to plant development. Another half hour per week will probably 
be occupied in the discussion of such phenomena as the coming of 
the birds and the melting of the snow, and to the explanation of 
Nature references found in the current class literature. 
It may be urged that such work has always been done in 
schools. In reply it may be said that where such is the case the 
requirements of the new regulations are being carried out, and this 
is no doubt being done in an unostentatious and effective way in 
many schools. It is probable, however, that most readers of the 
NATURALIST have cause to remember with regret schools which 
they themselves attended, where more than one hour per week was 
wasted in memorizing abstract and meaningless definitions and 
records which have since been found to be incorrect, where no at- 
tention was ever paid to birds or plants, trees or flowers, the glory 
of the sunset or the matchless grandeur of the heavens or indeed 
to any of the living realities of existence outside the school room, 
and where instead of forming habits of observation and apprecia- 
tion of the objects about them, the pupils formed habits which 
caused them to ignore all material things as commonplace and to 
move through realms of profoundest mystery and intense attrac- 
tiveness with blind eyes and dormant sensibilities. It is to be 
feared also that such schools have not yet entirely disappeared 
from Ontario, 
