76 
NATURE NOTES 
Without introducing controversial matters, may I express my belief that a well- 
considered scheme of Nature lessons, looming large on the school time-table, 
would tend more to keep the people in the villages than any other remedy. Truer 
words were never spoken than those uttered by Mr. Macnamara at the Rural 
Teachers’ Conference on New Year’s Day, 1897 (when I have used similar 
language some of my friends considered me a trifler) 
“ ‘ Give the agricultural labourer a thoroughly wise and generous education, 
invest him with the faculty of trained observation and the ability to think, teach 
him to perceive as well as to see , to interpret as well as to hear, and you have gone 
a long way towards keeping him upon the land, and contentedly upon the land.’ 
Need it be added that it is in the primary school where this task can be done ? 
Much of the work done in the special classes inaugurated by the Technical 
Education and University Extension Committees is unsuitable for the labourer 
and his family. We hear of botanical lectures which are admirably fitted to the 
needs of the experienced gardener, and of cookery lectures which would be best 
appreciated by the occupants of the squire’s kitchen. Such teaching is useless to 
the working-man and his children. The path must be first prepared by the 
people trained for that purpose. 
“ You will perhaps now say, ‘ Very good ; but could such a course as the one 
indicated be carried out in town schools?’ ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ No, obviously, 
because the surroundings are not suitable to the same extent. Yes, because 
many children in a district like S.W. London get into the country sometimes — 
may the opportunities increase ! So that, if far-sighted managers would supply 
abundance of pictures and specimens, the teacher has the means of leading the 
scholars to identify, and afterwards to examine and ponder over what they may 
see. And, believe me, it is no jest when one points to the great possibilities of 
our parks and commons, inexpressibly artificial as they are, — considered as 
reference libraries of natural history. Most of these places contain good speci- 
mens of English shrubs and trees (there are some thirty on or near Clapham 
Common), whilst Battersea Park contains one of the finest wild bird sanctuaries 
either in or immediately near London. Should the L.C.C. adopt Mr. Organ’s 
suggestion of laying out flower-beds especially for schools, our open spaces would 
be still more useful. The Government Code now allows visits to Museums and 
Picture Galleries ‘to count towards the time required for an attendance at school.’ 
What splendid treasures are stored up in these palaces few people dream, but 
until more subsidiary museums and galleries are established, the majority of 
teachers will be rarely able to use this method of instruction. It would not cost a 
relatively large sum to form branch museums with specimens which could be cir- 
culated from district to district. Under any circumstances, let us teach the child 
something of his little world, even if we occasionally neglect wearisome lessons on 
countries which mayhap he will never visit. Let him know a little, even a little, 
of the things under his feet and over his head. Let us have less of the science 
book and more of that open book in which he ‘ who runs may read.’ This study 
gives • the scholar resources within himself, and even on the dullest day of 
December, supplies thoughts which ‘ flash upon the inward eye which is the bliss 
of solitude.’ In the development of kindlier sympathies and more humane 
conduct, in the cultivation of a love of natural beauty, the country would receive 
back a hundredfold. Fancy a Bank Holiday on which no birds’ nests were 
destroyed, no squirrels stoned to death, no armfuls of wild flowers torn up and 
flung aside by the loafers and larrikins whose school career has been sadly too brief. 
“ It is still open for someone to doubt whether a scheme of Nature-knowledge 
is not out of place in town schools. Well, now, take an actual list of lessons from 
the junior syllabus followed in the schools, urban and rural, of the German state 
of Saxe- Weimar. I quote from the excellent Schoolmaster summaries of Mr. 
Sadler’s First Book of Reports. The lessons follow roughly the course of the 
year. Here are a few of the titles : — The time of day. The swallow. Observa- 
tions on the form and position of the sun at different times. Observations on the 
foliage of the lime, lilac, and oak trees. The garden beds, flowers, weeds, &c. 
Rain. The rainbow. A farmhouse. The goat. Migration of swallows. Why 
one begins to see his own breath. The frequence of togs. Observations on the 
decrease of day and the increase of night. A frozen window-glass. Snow- 
flakes, &c. 
“Commonplace matters, but matters brimful of interest! The advocates of 
