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assistance in the training of mind and character. Pet keeping 
has one marked advantage as a means of training, since it makes 
the child personally responsible for the health of the pet under 
its charge. Butit has numerous difficulties and disadvantages 
in London life when extended beyond the range of a compara- 
tively small number of creatures that lend themselves kindly 
to such a relationship. The truest kind of nature study de- 
velops an interest in the forms and processes of nature which 
is no less keen for being devoid of any stimulus of proprietary 
instinct. In America, where nature study in schools is more 
highly organized than it is as yet in our own country, it is 
found that a healthy personal stimulus can be provided by 
instituting competitions between school forms, or individual 
scholars, for the earliest or fullest records of observations, and 
by other such simple devices. 
The chief difficulty which at present stands in the way of 
nature study in English town schools is the lack, not of objects to 
study, but of qualified persons to instruct. Many school teachers 
excellently qualified in all that their training has demanded of 
them are not much more familiar with nature than their pupils; 
and they have often lost much of that power of observation which 
children generally possess. The same is true of many other 
persons who might superintend natural history societies and field 
classes. However great is their willingness to volunteer, they 
themselves often need help and instruction before it can bear 
much practical fruit. Distances are so great an obstacle in 
London, especially for children, and above all for poor children, 
that information on the local Sie for nature study in 
each district is specially helpful and valua 
An excellent example has been recently set to other local bodies 
gives a detailed account of the plants, birds, insects and other 
phases of nature and wild life which occur in Battersea Park and 
its neighborhood; but much of its information, as well as the 
suggestions which it throws out for lines of inquiry and discussion, 
