114 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



JOHN DEARNESS. 



The other portrait at the beginning of this volume is an excellent likeness of Mr. 

 John Dearness, Inspector of Schools for East Middlesex, President of the Ontario Edu- 

 cational Association, member of the Educational Council for the Province, and from 1895 

 to 1897 President of the Entomological Society of Ontario. Mr. Dearness was born at 

 Hamilton, Ontario, in 1852, his parents having come to Canada from the Orkney Islands. 

 His early years were spent on a farm near St. Marys, where no doubt he imbibed in his 

 youthful days the love of natural history which he has cherished ever since. His primary 

 education was obtained at the local schools, from which he proceeded to the Provincial 

 Normal School ; there he greatly distinguished himself throughout the course and left 

 with the highest honors and certificates. He at once began his professional work as the 

 teacher of a cross-roads log schcolhouse in the country, but was soon promoted to be prin- 

 cipal of a village school and then of a town school : after a brief period in a high school 

 he was appointed to the important position of inspector in 1874, having gone through all 

 these gradations of scholastic work in the marvellously short space of three years. He 

 has now been performing the duties of an inspector for nearly quarter of a century, and 

 is also Lecturer on Botany and Zoology in the "Western University of Ontario at London. 

 He was one of the editors of the series of " Royal Canadian Readers," and in 1896 was 

 appointed a member of the first Educational Council of this Province. 



Though his life has been so fully devoted to educational work, Mr. Dearness has yer 

 found time for the practical study of natural science, especially of mycology, and has 

 applied his leisure hours to the formation of a collection of fungi, which is unsurpassed 

 in Canada, containing as it does a very large number of species new to science. For many 

 years he has taken a warm interest in the Entomological Society of Ontario and since 

 1892 has held an official position upon its Council as Director, Vice-President and Presi- 

 dent. His addresses when filling the presidential chair have been published in these 

 Annual Reports and must be familiar to our readers ; they treat to a large extent, as 

 might naturally be expected, of the educational value of natural history and the methods 

 by which the study of insects can be successfully introduced into country schools. His 

 scientific writings, however, have consisted for the most part of papers read before the 

 Microscopical and Botanical Sections of the Society and have treated of toadstools and 

 mushrooms rather than of bugs and butterflies. Being of the same age as Mr. Harrington 

 and full of health and vigor, we may form similar expectations of his future work in his 

 chosen fields of both science and education. C.J\S.B. 



