TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 815 



Heath (one mile away). The time-table shows drawing, geography, drill, Nature 

 study. If wet these subjects are taken at school ; if fine, drawing is combined 

 with geography or Nature study the whole afternoon. Typical work includes 

 tree study ; scenery study — hills, rivers, valleys, rocks, &c. ; map reading and 

 making, contours; plant cacology; pond life; clouds, snow, and atmospheric 

 effects; 'colonisation' and 'seeking hidden treasure.' 



2. Saturday Rambles — e.g., to Epping Forest for toadstools; Richmond Park 

 for pond life ; Charlton Quarry for rocks and fossils. 



3. Long-distance Excursions. — A week's visit to some distant centre — e.g., 

 Chepstow, Abergavenny, Shanklin, the Cotswolds, Folkestone (with day trip to 

 Boulogne). The cost, from 18s. to 21s. per head, is borne chiefly by the parents. 

 Forty to fifty boys, aged from seven to fourteen, are taken. They have always 

 been taken in the Easter holiday, as all teachers are anxious to be with their boys. 

 In London the journeys may be done in school time. The Children's Country 

 Holiday Fund will send children to cottages for a fortnight, the L.C.C. providing 

 teachers. The ideal party would consist of three teachers, an organiser, treasurer, 

 and house-master, with thirty or forty boys. It is well to prepare a guide-book 

 containing maps, historical notes, &c, for each boy. It is cruelty to insist on 

 copious notes or descriptions on an excursion when the boys are out journeying 

 every day. Rough sketches with the briefest notes should suffice. 



4. The Open- Air School in Epping Forest. — The whole of the top class 

 (thirty-five boys) spent four days at a ' Retreat ' in Epping Forest in July with 

 their masters at a cost of 6.s. per head. School lessons were followed in the 

 forest according to the time-table in the mornings, a journey being taken in the 

 afternoon. 



' Our Aims ' (from the Guide-Book). 



1. To bring teachers and scholars into closer touch with one another. 



2. To foster habits of good fellowship, self-reliance, and unselfishness. 



3. To investigate the causes which produce scenery. 



4. To secure rock, plant, and animal specimens unobtainable near London. 



5. To extend our knowledge of mankind past and present. 



6. To gain health and vigour from a week in the open air. 



7. To learn how to spend a holiday intelligently and happily. 



3. School Gardening. By Alexander Sutherland. 



Many claims are made for gardening as a means for interesting and educating 

 children. The claims are that gardening has important intellectual, social, moral, 

 industrial, and aesthetic values. If so, it is the duty of everyone to help in 

 bringing about a larger use of the subject. 



About 30i square yards, or 60 feet by 27 feet, with central path of 4 feet, 

 was found by the writer to be a suitable area for two boys, one above 12 and 

 the other under. When girls are at sewing, the boys go to gardening. The 

 advantages noted are : (1) It vivifies school work, stimulating all branches of 

 study; (2) It gives the subject of Nature study a definite foundation, suggest- 

 ing problems through which children may be trained to ' do something in order 

 to find out something'; (3) It teaches respect for labour, showing the im- 

 portance of the work of producing vegetables, and of the skill desirable for this 

 fundamental human employment; (4) It brings the interests of the home and 

 school more into sympathy; (5) It tends to correct modern pleasure-seeking 

 tendencies, developing interests that furnish means of wholesome pleasures within 

 ourselves; (6) It expands the mind by the opportunities it gives for observation 

 of various plants of different kinds; (7) It brings the school into sympathetic 

 association with our most important industry — agriculture — and gives a simple, 

 recreative manual training in handling a spade and other garden tools; (8) It 

 awakens interests and desires that help in the formation of good habits, and 

 healthy, profitable employment in spare time; (9) It enhances the usefulness of 

 the citizens by the training towards special interests that he may follow up after 

 school days are over, and help in producing plants— living things of beauty and 

 wonder. 



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