36 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



Would it not be an excellent plan to influence the directors of county fairs to offer 

 prizes for the best collections of beneficial and injurious insects, or for the best case illus- 

 trating the development of an insect from the egg to the imago 1 



If our teachers, in rural school.", were to follow a course something like what has 

 been outlined in this address, who could estimate the influence upon the rising genera- 

 tion of farmers 1 Teachers desirous to take up this work could readily secure bulletins 

 and books that would serve their purpose admirably. The writer would not have pupils 

 get books, but to depend entirely upon the instructions of the teacher and their own 

 observations in the orchard and upon the farm. 



Such study of the great Book of Nature would result in developing observation in 

 young minds, something that is aided very little in our system of education among rural 

 schools. No faculty in the young mind is so ready for development as observation, and 

 yet how little is done to assist it. Nature furnishes material on every side in the 

 country, and surely we should take advantage of it and early tram our young to be close 

 observers. 



We have no doubt that the study of such subjects would increase the attractiveness 

 of farm life, and serve to keep many a boy upon the farm who, with such surroundings 

 as we find to day, seeks the shadowy allurements of a home among overcrowded centres 

 in town and city. 



We hope the day is not far distant when the teachings of na ure will be better 

 known in country sections, and that the boys and girls of our farming districts will see 

 more in farm life than what some bemoan as drudgery ; that they will see in it that 

 which tends to health, peace, independence, and an ideal home ; and that while they 

 eagerly learn how a thing should be done, they will also know the reason why, so that 

 practice and science, the handmaids of agriculture, will be more closely associated than in 

 the past. 



In the discussion which followed the reading of the paper, Dr. Bethune said that as 

 he had been a school-master for six and twenty years he could well appreciate all that 

 had been said, both by the President and Professor Panton, on the subject of teaching 

 entomology in schools, especially in those situated in rural districts. Any one who tried it 

 would be pleased and surprised to find how readily people in general are interested in 

 subjects of this kind, even when they have not paid any attention to them before. And 

 in the case of children, who are always curious about anything that attracts their atten- 

 tion, it is an easy matter to excite their interest and lead them to observe for themselves 

 some of the wonders and beauties of Nature. He thought that the plan of devoting the 

 last hour on Friday afternoons in country schools to talks upon Natural History was 

 an admirable one, and he hoped that it would be widely adopted. He had formerly 

 made use of this hour in a similar manner himself, but of late years the large increase in 

 the number of subjects for the Matriculation Examination had rendered it impossible to 

 spare the time. He thought that if country life could be made more interesting to the 

 young people fewer of them would be so eager to abandon their farms and rush into the 

 towns and cities. 



Mr. John S. Pearce spoke of the valuable work of the Society, which he did not 

 think was as generally known as it should be. He thought that more should be done, 

 especially by paragraphs in the newspapers, to draw the attention of the public to the 

 oreat benefits which the Society has been for years conferring upon farmers, fruit-growers 

 and gardeners throughout the Dominion. 



Mr. John Law moved a vote of thanks to Professor Panton for his excellent address 

 to which he had listened with great pleasure. This was seconded by Dr. Woolverton, 

 and carried unanimously. In putting it to the meeting the President (Mr. Dearness) 

 spoke on the importance of training the powers of observation of children by bringing 

 subjects of nature before them. The object would then become the teacher, and the 

 school-teacher the interpreter. 



