AQmrniTumi mmAzim, 
COI-OMBO. 
Added ecs a Supplement Monthly to tlie " TROPICAL AQEIGULTUBIST 
The following pages include the Contents of the Agrimltural Magazine for 
August : — 
Vol. XIII.] AUGUST, 1901. [No. 2. 
NATURE STUDY. 
We have placed ourselves in communication 
with the authorities who arc conducting the 
agricultural extension work in connection with 
Cornell University College of Agriculture with so 
such success, and are extremely gratified at the 
encouragement we hare received at their hands. 
In addition to a letter of welcome to us to 
join in the movement for the promotion of 
Nature Study, we have also received a collection 
of very useful publications that have been issued 
by that body. These consist of leaflets of in- 
structions to teachers for the preparation of lesson^ 
in Nature Study, with directions for the laying 
out of- school gardens, numbers of the Nature 
Study Quarterly and Junior Naturalist Monthly, 
and reading-lessons for farmers, all of which have 
furnished us with most entertaining information, 
inasmuch as we are only just beginning to work 
on the same lines in connection with our 
village schools in Ceylon, where, we venture 
to think the new movement for the promotion 
of agriculture is particularly well adapted, and 
that if persisted in without too great an anxiety 
for speedy results, which it would indeed be 
absurd to expect, would be attended with a 
full measure of success. 
We have to thank Mr, J. C. Willis for 
bringing the Cornell University Organization for 
Nature Study to our notice. We now proceed to 
cull from the papers referred to above with 
a view to laying before our readers the aim and 
object of Nature Study. 
Nature Study consists in a word, of seeing the 
things which one looks at, and drawing proper 
conclusions therefrom- It is not the study of a 
science as of botany, geology, and the like. That 
it takes the things at hand and endeavours to 
understand them, without reference to the 
systematic order or relationship of the objects. 
Indeed, it is wholly informal and unsystematic, 
the same as the objects are which one sees. 
It is therefore supremely natural. It simply trains 
the eye and the mind to see and to comprehend 
the common things of life; and the result is not 
directly the acquirement , of science but the 
establishing of a^. living sympathy with every* 
thing that is. 
If the objects to be studied are informal, tha 
methods of teaching should be the same. If 
Nature Study were made a stated part of a cur- 
riculum, its purpose would be defeated. The 
chief difficulty with our present school methods 
is the necessary formality of the courses and the 
hours. Tasks are set, and are as a rule, 
hard on a learner. The only way to teach 
Nature Study is with no cours3 laid down, but 
by taking up and studying natural objects, as far 
as possible as we find them, and it is the pupils 
who must do the work under the eye of the 
teacher, and the exercise should not be long. 
It should, indeed, come as a real exercise, (if 
possible whenever the pupils become listless), 
and above all, the exercise should not be looked 
upon as a recitation, and there should never be au 
examination- The teacher must studiously avoid 
definitions and types. For instance, he must not 
speak of tlie mi)del flower which indeed does noti 
