92 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



Then with regard to history, do not let it be an accumulation of 

 dry dates and enumeration of facts to which they correspond, but let 

 fuller particulars be given of the most important ones. 



With regard to geography, in these days of excursions it is with- 

 in the power of the teacher, whether belonging to the professional or 

 domestic class, to visit some of the points mentioned and thus be 

 better able to describe them. 



An especially weak point though, in my experience of the teach- 

 ing of history, is that not enough attention is given to Canadian 

 history. I was taught very little of it at school because I was allowed 

 to skip a class after a promotion examination, and the class I passed 

 over was the only one in which was taught Canadian history. The 

 other day I picked up the school history now in use and found that 

 it was, according to the title page, both an English and Canadian 

 history, but on investigation discovered that the Canadian section 

 was at the end of the work, and I wondered whether in all probability 

 that part of the book would ever be reached. 



There is, I know, rather a tendency to belittle Canadian and 

 American history, and also make out that there is very little of liter- 

 ary and historical interest to be met with when travelling in this 

 country, while we dilate on the points of interest and beauty to be 

 met with in other countries. 



I will admit that I have erred in this respect to some extent 

 myself, for many of the places of note in this country that I have 

 visited during my holiday trips were the objects of tours I have made 

 since visiting the European continent. At this present time there 

 are people in the city of Hamilton who have never perhaps visited 

 the Thousand Isles. In 1894, I met a young Hamiltonian who had 

 often visited Muskoka and Georgian Bay, and who was then making 

 his first trip down the St. Lawrence, while I had then just returned 

 from my first visit to Mackinaw, and last summer was the occasion 

 of my first visit to Parry Sound and Muskoka. To come nearer 

 home, how many have visited Lake Medad ? I, for one, have not, 

 and if it had not been for field day trips of the biological section I 

 might yet have to make my first trip to Ancaster sulphur springs or 

 the burning spring at Mount Albion. I have also heard of people 

 who had never gone up the inchne railway to see the view ; some 

 have never been in the pubhc library building or the museum of our 



