ON STUDIES MOST SUITABLE FOR ELExMENTAKY SCHOOLS. 461 



thing else until it is possible to adjourn to a menagerie. Where flowers 

 or stones are required let them be provided in sufficient quantity to 

 give every child a specimen. Let these be distributed at once, so that 

 the children may start with their own observations. This will require 

 training, and the teacher will at first spend much time in discussing what 

 is seen with the children. 



A good way of ensuring that children do really observe is to ask 

 them to make drawings from the spedmens in front of them. Drawings 

 can be more rapidly corrected by the teaclier than written accounts ; but 

 written accounts should also be asked for. If the first attempts of the 

 class are disappointing, the teacher may put his drawing on the blackboard 

 before them, then rub it off, and ask them to ti'y again from the specimen, 

 but while the drawing is being done there ought not to be any sketch on 

 the blackboard which might serve as a guide. 



The dictation of notes and the copying of diagrams from books or 

 from the blackboard we condemn. "We think that a good deal of time is 

 now being wasted on dictation and copying, to the great i)rejudice of the 

 name and fame of Nature study. The children should be asked questions 

 before they are told the answers ; and their verbal answers may be used 

 to draw up a description of the object before them. Afterwards they 

 may try to do the like for themselves. 



For the younger children the topic of the object lesson may very well 

 be chosen from those available at the time, and the lesson may be used as 

 a training in the construction of sentences embodying their observations. 

 Children may be encouraged to make their observations in turn. 



For the upper standards teachers will rightly wish to plan some more 

 systematic course. But the plan should retain some elasticity in order to 

 fit with the season. If the different stages of the opening chestnut-bud 

 are to be watched, they must be seized almost to a day, and yet one year 

 they may open a fortnight before or after their date on the previous year. 

 If the natural order Rosacnce is being studied, we must remember to 

 gather roses while we may. 



In training a class to manipulate expei'iments it is a good plan to ask 

 children in turn to come up and try to do things before the class. In 

 this way interest is stimulated, attention is drawn to probable mistake^ 

 and the teacher feels when the class is ready to start individual work. 



{d) The Syllabus. — We have no syllabus to oflfer : there is no old 

 syllabus to which we wish to adhere, nor any new one which we wish to 

 put in its place. Any teacher who wishes for a syllabus will find that 

 plenty of good ones have been published already by the Board of Educa- 

 tion, and any teacher who has found the spirit in which to study Nature 

 will be able to make a better syllabus for himself, new every year. 

 Salvation will not come by any syllabus ; and of every syllabus we would 

 say : ' This syllabus must be regarded as suggestive only, and not 

 inclusive. Every teacher should be free to take part of the syllabus in 

 detail rather than the whole superficially, and free also to go outside the 

 syllabus. A syllabus may be useful as a humble servant, but it is a very 

 bad master.' 



The danger of a syllabus is lest the general topics prescribed, such as 

 types of fruit, inflorescences, shapes of leaves, should be studied in 

 advance of the real concrete plant, whereas all the work should bo done 

 from the actual living specimens. The pupil himself, if possible, should 

 carry on the experiments. At all times plants should be studied as livin<^ 



