On studies most suitable fou elementary schools. 4(35 



gardening, &c., can be taken as special subjects in the second year. Not 

 many training colleges took up the subject in 1903, and even those were 

 much discouraged by the magnitude of the work involved in the syllabuses 

 which were attempted. In our judgment every training college should 

 give such instruction in the method of observation and experiment that 

 the future schoolmaster would be put on the right track, and could later 

 on work out his own subject. Teaching may be wholly opposed to the 

 spirit we strive to inculcate if Nature study is treated as another, and a 

 very cumbrous, subject to be got up for examination. The training college 

 student is very heavily taxed ; he does not need more subjects ; he does 

 need to be taught the right method of going to work. 



The more training in scientific research the teacher has had the better. 

 If he has only been getting up book-work in the hope of passing examina- 

 tions his influence may be less helpful. Where the teacher is not in 

 sympathy with scientific methods of inquiry he cannot be expected to 

 see how to put the children on the right road. It is important that the 

 instruction should not become stereotyped, and a course for teachers will 

 gain in freshness if worked out anew each year. Great insistence should 

 be laid upon the laboratory and outdoor work, and all knowledge should 

 be derived from the study of actual specimens. Mere text- book learning 

 in the training college is like poison at the fountain-head. 



8, Voluntary Heljy, 



^ Those who are not naturalists by hobby may do mucli to encoura»G 

 children by giving their moral support to the simple interests of the way- 

 side. Children may be encouraged to bring curiosities with them to 

 school. Many schools now have a rack of bottles to receive wild flowers 

 picked on the way to school ; a slate reserved for Nature notes, where 

 the first scholar who sees a swallow may enter the fact. Pots of growing 

 seedlings may occupy the window-sills. Aquariums are always interest* 

 ing, and a caterpillar-cage might be tried. 



We hesitate to say much about school museums, unless they are to be 

 annually burnt. Their use is in the making, not in the keeping. The 

 course of instruction should be based upon specimens which may be 

 handled freely, and, if necessary, pulled to pieces. But there is great use 

 in a .small glass-case where objects brought in by the scholars may be 

 placed at once and where everyone may see them. This would become a 

 'collection of instructive labels illustrated by appropriate specimens.' 

 But not for long ; the contents must be changed more often than a shop- 

 window if interest is to be maintained. 



It is just in the country schools, where it is impossible to expect the 

 professional teachers to be specialists in every department at once, that 

 we are most likely to appeal successfully to local residents for help. 

 Leave from the squire to see his new agricultural machinery, a visit to 

 any well-kept flower garden or apiary, help to the pupil-teachers in 

 naming flowers, gifts of books to the school library— any of these would 

 be a great assistance. The difficulties are often personal and real. The 

 teachers know best when the children are interested and when they are 

 tired, and all help extended to the teachers gets through to the children. 

 We want to enlist for the elementary schools the same kind of help from 

 enthusiastic governors, parents, old scholars, and friends which has already 

 done so much for the secondary schools. There is already a Society for 

 190G. H H 



