NOTE.— The children should then, in proper order, nominate and elect 

 «uch ofBcers as in the jad^ment of the teacher are desirable, with or with- 

 out written rules for the government of the club. 



Among the names which may be selected for the club the following are 

 suggested: The Ramblers, The Naturalists, The Zig Zag Club. 



Now, in order to interest you still more in the work which this club 

 is going to try to do, I want to tell you something about a famous man 

 who started, and for a long time conducted, one of these observation 

 clubs in England. This man, the Rev. Chas. Kingsley, was a great 

 preacher — for a time in the Cathedral at Chester and afterwards in 

 that beautiful Westminster Abbey, of which you have probably heard — 

 He was a great lover of books, too, but a still greater lover of nature. 

 In an address which he once made to the boys in Wellington he said 

 a good many wise things, a few of which I will read to you. I want 

 you to listen very carefully, for he tells you some things which will be 

 useful to you as members of an observation club. 



"The first thing for a boy to learn, after obedience and morality, is 

 a habit of observation — a habit of using his eyes. They say knowledge 

 is power, and so it is, but only the knowledge which you get by obser- 

 vation. 



"The art of learning consists, first and foremost, in the art of ob- 

 serving. 



"Everything which helps a boy's powers of observation, helps his 

 power of learning; and I know from experience that nothing helps so 

 much as the study of the world about you, and especially of natural 

 history. To be accustomed to watch for curious objects, to know in a 

 moment when you have come to anything new — ^which is observation. 

 To be quick at seeing when things are like, and when unlike — ^which is 

 classification. All that must, and I well know does, help to make a boy 

 shrewd, earnest, accurate, ready for whatever may happen." 



Wliile Mr. Kingsley was Canon of Chester he thought he might do 

 good to the working people by interesting them in nature study. So 

 he occasionally gave them evening lectiixes. I want to read you now 

 a part of his lecture on coal, from which you will see that he had very 

 keen eyes, and, too, that he used very beautiful language. 



In the course of his lecture he lifted a lump of coal from the table, 

 and holding it up before his listeners, said: 



"A diamond, nothing less. We may consider the coal upon the fire 

 as a middle term of a series of which the first is the live wood, and the 

 last a diamond; and indulge safely in the fancy that every diamond in 

 the world has probably, at some remote epoch, formed part of a grow- 

 ing plant. A strange transformation, which vnll look to us more 



