June 23, 1904] 



NA TURE 



sympathy with science, as shown, for instance, by his 

 numerous references to botany and his many visits 

 to the British Museum, his reverence for religion, and 

 his affection for his friends. 



He might have made his diarv more piquant, no 

 doubt, if he had yielded to the temptation of intro- 

 ducing some touches of that ill-nature which, as Lord 

 Acton once said, makes the whole world kin. It is 

 all the more to his credit that he has made a 

 thoroughly enjoyable book quite free from scandal or 

 bitterness 



Many little indications scattered through the whole 

 diary show how useful and sympathetic a part Lady 

 Grant Duff has taken in her husband's career. 



AVEBURV. 



THE METHOD OF NATURE STUDY. 

 The Ltidgaie Nature Study Readers. Books i., ii., and 



iii. Edited by J. C. Medd. Pp. 176, 204-, and 215. 

 The Frank Buckland Reader. Edited by F. T. Buck- 

 land. Pp. 24S. (London : Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 

 1904.) Price IS., is., is. 3d., is. 6d. 

 ' I 'HE subject of " nature study " has occupied a 

 -*- pretty prominent place in educational discussions 

 for the past few years, and now, for good or evil, seems 

 to be established as a part of the routine of most ele- 

 mentary schools. For good or evil we say advisedly, 

 since the subject is pursued with mixed aims and with 

 very varied conceptions of what it can contribute to a 

 child's education. Some people see in the subject a 

 means of increasing the interest in agriculture and 

 staying the migration to the towns, others regard it 

 from a humanitarian and aesthetic side as teaching 

 children to be fond of plants and animals; but the true 

 function of nature study is to provide a convenient 

 means of teaching the child to observe and experiment 

 and so to apply its reason to the things among 

 which it lives. Its only justification is that by its 

 means the child can be made to work its own mind in- 

 stead of passively accepting the statements of the 

 teacher. As soon as the child's mind ceases to be 

 actively finding out from the real object, as soon as the 

 personal and actual note is lost, nature study becomes 

 a very indifferent school subject. 



The want of a clear conception of the spirit in which 

 nature study should be pursued is somewhat apparent 

 in the little series of readers which Mr. Medd has got 

 together ; they consist of a number of tvpical lessons 

 contributed by men and women engaged in teaching all 

 over the country, among whom we recognise the best 

 of the exhibitors at the Regent's Park Nature Studv 

 Exhibition in 1902, which was so successfully organised 

 by Mr. Medd. The subjects range over the whole scale 

 of natural phenomena, wind and rain, the life of 

 animals and plants, how to keep pets, rocks and fossils. 

 ^^"e can recommend the book thoroughlv to the teacher 

 looking round for a subject to make his own, since 

 with a little discrimination he will find examples of 

 how to work and what to avoid. For example, in close 

 proximity come two lessons about rocks; at p. 165, vol. 

 iii., Dr. G. Abbot illustrates how the teacher should 

 NO. 1808, VOL. 70] 



proceed to study the quarries in his neighbourhood 

 (compare also Mr. Lewis, vol. ii., p. 192), what he can 

 show from them about the way rocks have been made, 

 and how they lead to general ideas about the structure 

 of the country. A few pages further on we get the con- 

 trast — a tepid extract of text-book about strata, folds, 

 dip, strike, &c., illustrated by diagrammatic sections of 

 Kinekulle on Lake VVener, the Bavarian Hills, and the 

 Schiefergebirge of the Eifel ! Again, in the same 

 volume, we get a lesson giving a wholly unilluminating 

 account of sun-dials and the apparent motion of the 

 sun, which would leave the ordinary child dazed with 

 east and west, hour lines and shadows. What is anyone 

 to make of an explanation like the following : — 



" Now, when the ancients found out that the reason 

 the time of sunrise varies is because the earth's axis is 

 tilted, U occurred to them to make the gnomon lean in 

 the same direction. The result of this was that the 

 shadow fell on the same hour lines at the same time of 

 the day all the year round. What a splendid dis- 

 covery ! " 



The next lesson is a good example of the right 

 method; the children learn to follow the change in 

 altitude of the^sun throughout the year by marking its 

 height on a window-pane, the motion on the floor of 

 the shadow of a spot on the same window being also 

 recorded at the same hour every day. Little bv little, 

 as the child absorbs facts of this kind, the motion of 

 the earth and its consequences as explained by the 

 teacher will begin to live in its mind. 



It cannot be too often repeated that as soon as nature 

 study leaves the path of actual observation and experi- 

 ment it not only becomes valueless educationally, but 

 it is apt to result in howlers. Popular natural histories 

 abound in hoary untruths, some of which are handed 

 on another stage in these pages ; some again seem to 

 be newly invented. Take the following statement, 

 vol. iii., p. j2 : — 



" The experienced eye can detect at once whether anv 

 particular soil is, or is not, deficient in iron by the colour 

 of the vegetation. Compare the grass growing on 

 chalk downs with that in a rich, alluvial valley even in 

 the same locality. The former is short and stunted, no 

 matter how wet the season may be, and it never attains 

 the deep, rich green hue of the latter, inasmuch as 

 chalk contains very little iron, and that as an impurity." 



Sciolism could not go further; we should like to viva 

 the author on the meaning he attaches to the word 

 "impurity" in this connection, but he, alas! is an 

 inspector, born to viva other people ! 



.As regards the way to treat natural history proper in 

 the school and how to turn the child's strong instinct for 

 collecting into the right lines, no better lessons could 

 be found than those on insects provided by Mr. W. J. 

 Lucas. 



The fourth volume of the series consists of a selec- 

 tion from Frank Buckland's " Curiosities of Natural 

 History," and makes as good a school reading book 

 as one could wish to have. The whole series is well 

 printed and liberally, if somewhat unequallv, illus- 

 trated. A. b. H. 



