594 



NA TURE 



[August 22, 1901 



been the secretion of spicules, formed by cells, probably 

 at first very few in number, of the dermal layer, which 

 continually increased in numbers and in importance, not 

 only for the better support and protection of the sponge 

 body and in particular of the reproductive cells, but also, 

 perhaps, for entangling and capturing the nutritive par- 

 ticles brought by the water current. Clearly, so delicate 

 an organism could only maintain its existence in tranquil 

 water. The ancestors of the Calcarea and Demospongire, 

 by the development of a thick and often very tough 

 mesogloea and a highly differentiated dermal layer, 

 attained to the degree of firmness necessary for life in the 

 littoral zone. The He.xactinellids, with a more primitive 

 type of histological structure, have retained also their 

 ancient deep-sea habitat. 



Enough has been said to show the important results of 

 Prof. lijima's researches. We may add that the plates 

 accompanying the work are a credit, not only to the author, 

 but also to Japanese lithography. We shall await further 

 instalments with much interest. E. A. Minchin. 



INSTRUCTION IN VILLAGE SCHOOLS. 

 Rural Readers. Book I. By Vincent T. Murche. Pp. i68. 



(London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1901.) 

 T/ie Teacher's Manual of Object Lessons for Rural 



Schools. Books L and H. By the same author. 



Pp. 231 and 252. 



THESE books have been written by the headmaster 

 of the Boundary Lane Board School, Camberwell, 

 to meet the requirements of teachers in rural schools as 

 laid down in the suggestive circular recently issued by 

 the Board of Education. Mr. Murche claims to be an 

 old hand at rural education, and the books before us cer- 

 tainly bear out his claim. If properly used, teachers will 

 find them most valuable guides in introducing nature 

 study into elementary schools. Their value is so much 

 dependent on their mode of use that the author's caution, 

 as given in the preface, must be kept well in mind. He 

 says, 



" These books are not itiiended to form a rigid cast-iron 

 scheme of lessons, to be blindly followed by every teacher 

 into whose hands they may fall. They are rather to be 

 considered as a store-house from which the teacher may 

 draw, to suit his own special conditions ; and further, 

 the ample provision of subjects in each volume will 

 enable him for years to construct scheme after scheme, 

 all of them dealing with just those subjects which will 

 appeal to country children.'' 



A brief summary of the contents will enable our 

 readers to form an idea of the ground covered. Book L 

 (Object Lessons) contains forty lessons, grouped under 

 six headings ; lessons from simple natural phenomena 

 such as the air, the sky, the sun, clouds and rain, wind 

 and weather, &c. ; round about the farm ; lessons on the 

 seasons ; animals kept on the farm ; and some useful 

 minerals. Book H. contains forty lessons, grouped 

 under lessons from animals, domestic and wild ; 

 lessons from birds ; lessons from plants, and a number 

 of miscellaneous lessons. The " Reader," of which 

 the first part only is at present before us, is arranged 

 in dialogue form and is to be used in conjunction 

 with the corresponding volume of object lessons. We 

 NO. 1660, VOL. 64] 



have nothing but praise for Mr. Murche's little books. 

 They are the best of the kind that have hitherto 

 come under our notice, and should go a long way 

 towards facilitating that kind of teaching which all those 

 who have taken part in the modern revival in rural 

 education have been so anxious to see introduced into 

 village schools. The great danger attending the use of 

 such books is of course the tendency shown by teachers 

 to make a fetish of the printed page. It is so much 

 easier to teach didactically and to pump information into 

 pupils from printed books than it is to develop their 

 individual powers of observation and reasoning that ex- 

 treme advocates of the "heuristic" method might take 

 exception to the present volumes, as calculated to play 

 too much into the hands of the teacher and to leave too 

 little to the pupils themselves. But this danger is not 

 confined particularly to rural education ; it lurks in the 

 pages of teachers' manuals in every branch of science,- 

 and if the publication of such works has injured the 

 cause of true education it is more frequently the teachers 

 than the authors who are at fault. 



With respect to rural education in particular, it must 

 not be forgotten that it has lagged far behind the 

 education in towns, and that now — largely owing to the 

 work of the Agricultural Education Committee — it is in 

 a state of transition. The practical difficulties in the 

 way of rational teaching in village schools are familiar to 

 all who have attempted to grapple with the problem. 

 Not the least of these difficulties is the imperfect educa- 

 tion of the teachers themselves. Some of the technical 

 instruction committees, as in Essex, have done good 

 work through their normal classes, but much remains to 

 be done before a body of teachers thoroughly trained in 

 the requirements and in full sympathy with the objects 

 of rural education can be called into existence. There 

 are teachers in many such schools who are anxious to 

 meet the new conditions now made possible through the 

 enlightened policy of the Board of Education if they are 

 helped in the way that Mr. Murche has attempted to 

 help them by showing what there is to teach and how 

 to teach it. If conducted rationally and scientifically, 

 these object lessons will certainly accomplish the purpose 

 for which they are written. 



There is one little side issue to which the writer of this 

 notice is glad of the present opportunity of calling 

 attention. Now that the education of country children 

 is making a serious departure in the right direction, the 

 time seems ripe for inculcating that respect for living 

 nature which is generally absent in the average child. 

 Bovs and girls are naturally destructive animals. The 

 teachers in rural schools can do more than any other 

 class of people to restrain and direct this tendency. 

 They have to deal with children at the most impression- 

 able period of their lives, and they have it in their power 

 to point but exactly why wanton destruction is to be 

 deprecated. The collecting of the common forms of 

 animal and vegetable life for the purposes of study, i.e. 

 for educational purposes, might be encouragedya(//rt'OT«/y, 

 but the ruthless destruction that accompanies the ordinary 

 country ramble should be severely censured. If hordes 

 of village school children are to be taken out into the 

 country without proper restraint, the "nature study" is 

 apt to degenerate into a mere collecting raid with no 



