ON STUDIES SUITABLE FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 357 
Every syllabus that includes the shadow of a stick at noon or the 
nightly turning of the Great Bear about the Pole prescribes topics which 
it may be impossible to treat practically in lessons held at 2.30 in the 
afternoon. But this is just the reason why the routine of school work 
may suitably be broken to allow children to witness exceptional natural 
phenomena—a great flood, a high tide, or an eclipse of the sun—- 
phenomena whose times of occurrence are not within our control. 
In schools which possess a garden much can be done by the children 
init. Simple experiments in assimilation, pollination, grafting, &c., can 
be tried. Where classification is studied the making of order beds by the 
children is a great assistance. When it is impossible to work in a garden, 
experiments may be carried on in window-boxes. 
Excursions should be made to Janes and fields at all times of the 
year. Even in towns it is possible to study the branching of trees and 
unfolding of buds and to become familiar with the aspects of different 
trees in winter, spring, and summer. 
To give definiteness to outdoor work some questions to be answered 
may be set before starting a walk, and answers to them written out 
afterwards. 
Access to the Country. 
Is it not possible that some city teachers, anxious to gain in Nature 
lore, would find that a few years spent in working at a country school 
would give them invaluable opportunities of studying things in the open 
which previously they bad only heard of in lectures or read about in 
books ? 
The extent to which the children of the city may be usefully and 
economically transported to the country for purposes of education remains 
largely unexplored. The Sunday schools have demonstrated the possi- 
bility of taking large numbers into the country for a single day’s outing. 
The Children’s Country Holiday Fund and the various seaside camps 
held during the summer show how to arrange for a few weeks of holiday. 
These arrangements have in view chiefly the great need for fresh air 
and holiday. But of definite, directed educational use of the country we 
hear little as yet. The question of extending the advantages of a country 
boarding-school education to the children of the poor is coming up for 
discussion. One large city is already casting longing eyes on the country 
schoolhouses standing empty during the holiday weeks whilst the town 
children pine for fresh air. A good deal might be done by hearty co- 
operation between city ard county educational authorities. Schemes are 
mooted for sending out whole classes of city children under their own 
teachers for a few weeks at a country school. Some voluntary help and 
organisation, with special funds subscribed ad hoc, will probably be 
necessary to carry these schemes through. 
We hear of one London Board school taking its scholars far afield, 
and a provincia] Board school has shown what brilliant use may be made 
of the school journey. Some of cur secondary schools are emphatic as 
to the usefulness of such journeys lasting more than one day. In Swit- 
zerland they have a much more recognised place as a part of general 
education. In our own elementary schools the difficulties are largely 
financial. 
